At the time when the beggars were carrying away Abdullah and his wife,
Khaled was sitting in his accustomed place, silent and heavy at heart,
and Zehowah played softly to him upon a barbat and sang a sad song in a
low voice. For she saw that gloominess had overcome him and she feared
to disturb his mood, though she would gladly have made him smile if she
had been able.
A black slave of Khaled's whom he had treated with great kindness had
secretly told him that there was a plan to enter the palace with evil
during that night, for the fellow had spied upon those who knew and had
overheard what he now told his master. He had also asked whether he
should not warn the guards of the palace, in order that a strict watch
should be kept, but Khaled had bidden him be silent.
'Either the guards are conspiring with the rest,' said Khaled, 'and will
be the first to attack me, or they are ignorant of the plan; and if so
how can they withstand so great a multitude? I will abide by my own
fate, and no man shall lose his life for my sake unless he desires to do
so.'
But he privately put on a coat of mail under his aba, and when he sat
down in the harem to await the end he would not let Zehowah take his
sword, but laid it upon his feet and sat upright against the wall,
looking towards the door.
'Since I have no soul,' he said to himself, 'this is probably the end of
all things. But there is no reason why I should not kill as many of
these murderers as possible.'
He was gloomy and desponding, however, since he saw that his hour was at
hand, and that Zehowah was no nearer to loving him than before. He
watched her fingers as she played upon the instrument, and he listened
to the soft notes of her voice.
'It is a strange thing,' he thought, 'and I believe that she is not able
to love, any more than my sword upon my feet, which is good and true and
beautiful, and ever ready to my hand, but is itself cold, having no
feeling in it.'
Still Zehowah sang and Khaled heard her song, listening watchfully for a
man's tread upon the threshold and looking to see a man's face and the
light of steel in the shadow beyond the lamps.
'The night is long,' he said at last, aloud.
'It is not yet midnight,' Zehowah answered. 'But you are tired. Will you
not go to rest?'
'I shall rest to-morrow,' said Khaled. 'To-night I will sit here and
look at you, if you will sing to me.'
Zehowah gazed into his eyes, wondering a little at his exceeding
sadness. Then she bowed her head and struck the strings of the
instrument to a new measure more melancholy than the last, and sang an
old song of many verses, with a weeping refrain.
'Are you also heavy at heart to-night?' Khaled asked, when he had
listened to the end.
'It is not easy to kindle a lamp when the rain is falling heavily,'
Zehowah said. 'Your sadness has taken hold of me, like the chill of a
fever. I cannot laugh to-night.'
'And yet you have a good cause, for they say that to-night the earth is
to be delivered of a great malefactor, a certain Persian, whose name is
perhaps Hassan, a notorious robber.'
Khaled turned away his head, smiling bitterly, for he desired not to see
the satisfaction which would come into her face.
'This is a poor jest,' she answered in a low voice, and the barbat
rolled from her knees to the carpet beside her.
'I mean no jesting, for I do not desire to disappoint you, since you
will naturally be glad to be freed from me. But I am glad if you are
willing to sing to me, for this night is very long.'
'Do you think that I believe this of you?' asked Zehowah, after some
time.
'You believed it yesterday, you believe it to-day, and you will believe
it to-morrow when you are free to make choice of some other man--whom
you will doubtless love.'
'Yet I know that it is not true,' she said suddenly.
'It is too late,' Khaled answered. 'The more I love you, the more I see
how little faith you have in me--and the less faith can I put in you.
Will you sing to me again?'
'This is very cruel and bitter.' Zehowah sighed and looked at him.
'Will you sing to me again, Zehowah?' he repeated. 'I like your sad
music.'
Then she took up the barbat from the carpet, but though she struck a
chord she could not go on and her hand lay idle upon the strings, and
her voice was still.
'You are perhaps tired,' said Khaled after some time. 'Then lay aside
the instrument and sleep.' He composed himself in his seat, his sword
being ready and his eyes towards the door.
But Zehowah shook her head as though awaking from a dream, her fingers
ran swiftly over the strings and gentle tones came from her lips. Khaled
listened thoughtfully to the song and the words soothed him, but before
she had reached the end, she stopped suddenly.
'Why do you not finish it?' he asked.
'If you have told me truth,' she answered, 'this is no time for singing
and music. But if not, why should I labour to amuse you, as though I
were a slave? I will call one of the women who has a sweet voice and a
good memory. She will sing you a kasid which will last till morning.'
'You are wrong,' said Khaled. 'There is no reason in what you say.'
But he reflected upon her nature, while he spoke.
'Surely,' he thought, 'there is nothing in the world so contradictory as
a woman. I ask of her a song and she is silent. I bid her rest,
supposing her to be weary, and she sings to me. If I tell her that I
hate her she will perhaps answer that she loves me. Min Allah! Let us
see.'
'You inspire hatred in me,' he said aloud, after a few moments.
At this Zehowah was very much astonished, and she again let the barbat
fall from her knees.
'You wished me to believe that you loved me, and this not long since,'
she answered.
'It may be so. I did not know you then.'
He looked towards the door as though he would say nothing further.
Zehowah sighed, not understanding him yet being wounded in that
sensitive tissue of the heart which divides the outer desert of pride
from the inner garden of love, belonging to neither but separating the
two as a veil. And when there is a rent in that veil, pride looks on
love and scoffs bitterly, and love looks on pride and weeps tears of
fire.
'I am sorry that you hate me,' she said, but the words were bitter in
her mouth as a draught from a spring into which the enemy have cast
wormwood, that none may drink of it.
'Allah is great!' thought Khaled. 'This is already an advantage.'
Then Zehowah took up the barbat and began to sing a careless song not
like any which Khaled had ever heard. This is the song--
'The fisherman of Oman tied the halter under his arms,
The sky was as blue as the sea in winter.
The fisherman dived into the deep waters
As a ray of light shoots through a sapphire of price.
The sea was as blue as the sky, for it was winter.
Among the rocks below the water it was dark and cold
Though the sky above was as blue as a fine sapphire.
The fisherman saw a rough shell lying there in the dark between two
crabs,
"In that shell there must be a large pearl," he said.
But when he would have taken it the crabs ran together and fastened
upon his hand.
His heart was bursting in his ribs for lack of breath
And he thought of the sky above, as blue as the sea in winter.
So he pulled the halter and was taken half-fainting into the boat.
The crabs held his hand but he struck them off,
And his heart beat merrily as he breathed the wind
Blowing over the sea as blue as the sky in winter.
"There are no pearls in this ocean," he said to his companions,
"But there are crabs if any one cares to dive."
One of them saw the shell caught between the legs of the crabs,
He opened it and found a pearl of the value of a kingdom.
"The pearl is mine, but you may eat the crabs," he said to the
fisherman,
"Since you say there are no pearls in this ocean,
Which is as blue as the sky in winter."
Then the fisherman smote him and tried to take the pearl,
But as they strove it fell into the deep water and sank,
Where the sea was as blue as the sky in winter.
"I will drown you with a heavy weight," said the fisherman, "for you
have robbed me of my fortune."
"I have not robbed you, O brother, for the pearl is again where you
found it,
In the sea which is as blue as the sky in winter."
Then the fisherman dived again many times in vain
Till the drums of his ears were broken and his heart was dissolved for
lack of breath.
But the pearl is still there, at the bottom of the sea,
And the sea is as blue as the sky in winter.
This is the kasid of the fisherman of Oman
Which Zehowah Bint ul Mahomed el Hamid
Has made and sung for her lord, Khaled the Sultan.
May Allah send him long life and many such hearts
As the one which fell into the ocean
When the sky was as blue as the sea in winter.'
'This is a new song,' said Khaled, when she had finished.
'Is it? I made it many months ago,' Zehowah answered. 'Does it please
you?'
'It is not very melodious, nor do I think there is much truth in the
matter of it. But I thank you, for it has served to pass the time.'
Zehowah laughed a little scornfully.
'I daresay you would prefer the song of a Persian nightingale,' she
said. 'Nevertheless my song is full of truth, though you cannot see it.
There are many who seek for things of great value and do not know when
they have found them because a crab has bitten their hands.'
'Verily,' thought Khaled, 'this is indeed the spirit of contradiction.'
But he was silent for a time, not wishing that she should think him
easily moved. In the meantime Zehowah played softly upon the little
instrument and Khaled watched her, wondering whether she were not
playing upon the strings of his heart, for her own pleasure, as
skilfully as her fingers ran upon the chords of the barbat. Many words
rose to his lips then, and he wished that he also had the science of
music that he might sing sweetly to her. Then he laughed aloud at his
own imagination, which was indeed that of a foolish youth.
'The lion roaring for a sweetmeat,' he thought, 'and the sword-hand
aching to scratch little tunes upon a lute!'
Zehowah turned suddenly when he laughed, and ceased from playing.
'I am glad that you are merry,' she said. 'I like laughter better than
reproaches and prefer it to gloomy forebodings of evil when none is at
hand.'
Khaled's face grew dark, and he looked again towards the door.
'If you will stay with me, you shall see that evil is not far off,' he
answered, for she had reminded him of what he was expecting, and he knew
that it was no jesting matter. 'But you shall please yourself in this as
in all other matters, though it were better for you to go now and shut
yourself up in an inner room and wait for the end. The night is
advancing, and all will soon be over.'
'Hear me, Khaled,' said Zehowah, speaking earnestly. 'If you bid me go,
I will go, or if you desire me to stay, I will remain with you. But if
you are indeed in danger, as you say, let us call up the guards and the
watchmen who sleep in the palace, that they may stand by you with their
swords and help you to fight if there is to be strife.'
'I will have no treacherous fellows about me,' Khaled answered, 'and
there are none here whom I can trust. My hour is coming and I will
fight this fight alone. But if you were such as I once hoped, I would
say: "Remain with me, so long as you are safe." Now, since Allah has
willed it thus, I say to you: "Go and seek safety where you can find
it." Go, therefore, Zehowah, and leave me alone, for I need no one
beside me, and you least of all.'
He turned away his head, lest she should see his face, and with his hand
made a gesture bidding her to leave him. She rose from her seat softly
and hung the barbat upon the wall with the other musical instruments,
looking over her shoulder to see whether he would call her back. But he
neither moved nor spoke, being resolved to venture all upon this trial,
for he knew that if she loved him even but a little, she would not leave
him alone in the extremity of danger.
Then she went towards the door of the room, turning her head to look at
him as she passed near him.
'Farewell,' she said. But he did not answer nor show that he heard her
voice.
As she lifted the curtain to go out, she lingered and gazed at him. He
sat motionless upon the carpet, upright against the wall, his sword
lying across his feet, his hands hidden under his sleeves, looking
towards her indeed but not seeming to see her.
'There can be no real danger,' she thought. 'Could any man sit thus,
expecting death, and refusing to let any one stand by him to fight with
him? Surely, he is playing with me, and setting a trap for me. But he
shall not catch me.'
She turned to go and the curtain was falling behind her when the night
wind from the open passage brought a sound to her ears from a far
distance. She started and listened, as camels do when they hear the
first moving of the hot wind. There were no voices in the noise, which
was low and dull, like the breathing of a great multitude and the soft
moving of feet, and altogether it was as the slow rising and falling
back of the sea upon the shores of Oman, when the great summer storm is
coming from the south-west.
Zehowah stood still a moment and drank in every murmur that reached her
from without. Then her face grew white and her lips trembled when she
thought of Khaled sitting alone on the other side of the curtain, with
his sword upon his feet, waiting for the end. She lifted the hanging a
little and looked at him again. He saw her, but made no sign. Even as
she looked, the distant murmur grew louder and she fancied that he moved
his head as though he heard it. Then she entered the room and came and
stood before him.
'There is a great multitude in the square before the palace,' she said.
'I know it,' he answered, calmly looking up to her face. 'It needed not
that you should tell me.'
'Will you not let me stay with you now?' asked Zehowah.
'Why should you stay here?' he asked with a pretence of indifference.
'Of what use are you to me? Take this sword. Can you strike with it?
Your wrist is feeble. Or take a bow from the weapons on the wall. Can
you draw the string? Your strength is sufficient for the lute, and your
skill for scratching the strings of the barbat. Go and save yourself. I
am alone and every man's hand is against me.'
Zehowah stood still in the room and hesitated, looking into his eyes for
something which she all at once desired with a hot thirst. At last she
spoke in an uncertain voice.
'Yet you said not long since that if I were such as you once hoped, you
would bid me remain.'
'I do not care,' he answered. 'Yet for your own sake, I advise you to go
away.'
'For my own sake!' she repeated, trying to speak scornfully, and turning
to go a second time.
But she did not reach the door. She stood still before the weapons which
hung upon the wall, and paused a moment and then took a sword from its
place. Khaled watched her. She grasped the hilt as well as she could
and swung the weapon in the air once with all her might. Then she
uttered a little cry of pain, for she had twisted her wrist. The sword
fell to the floor.
'He is right,' she said in a low tone, speaking aloud to herself. 'I am
weak and can be of no use to him.'
She went on once more towards the door, slowly, her head bent down, then
stopped and then looked back again. She feared that she might see a
smile on his face, but his eyes were grave and calm. Then he saw her
turn and lean against the wall as though she were suddenly weak. She hid
her face, and there was silence for a moment, and after that a low sound
of weeping filled the still room.
'Why do you shed tears?' Khaled asked presently. 'There is no danger for
you, I think. If you will go and shut yourself in the inner rooms you
will be safe.'
She turned fiercely and their eyes met.
'What do I care for myself?' she cried. 'Among so many deaths there is
surely one for me!'
Even as she spoke Khaled felt a cool breath upon his forehead, stirring
the stillness. He knew that it came from the beating of an angel's
wings. All his body trembled, his head fell forward a little and his
eyes closed.
'This is death,' he thought, 'and my fate has come. A little longer,
and she would have loved me.' But he did not speak aloud.
Again Zehowah's face was turned towards the wall, and still the sound of
her weeping filled the air, not subsiding and dying away, but rather
increasing with every moment.
'Life is not yet gone,' said Khaled in his heart. 'There is yet hope.'
For he no longer felt the cold breath on his forehead, and the trembling
had ceased for a moment.
He tried to speak aloud, but his lips could not form words nor his
throat utter sounds, and he was amazed at his weakness. A great despair
came upon him and his eyes were darkened so that he could not see the
lights.
'If only I could speak to her now, she might love me yet!' he thought.
The distant murmur from without was louder now and reached the room, and
he heard it. He tried with all his might to raise his hand, to lift his
head, to speak a single word.
'It may be that this is the nature of death,' he thought again, 'and I
am already dead.'
The noise from the multitude came louder and louder. Zehowah heard it
and her breath was caught in her throat. She looked up and saw that the
high window of the chamber was no longer quite dark. The day was
dawning. Then pressing her bosom with her hands she looked again at
Khaled. His head was bent upon his breast and he was so still that she
thought he had fallen asleep. A cry broke from her lips.
'He cares not!' she exclaimed. 'What is it to him, whether I go, or
stay?'
Again Khaled felt the cool breeze in the room, fanning his forehead, and
once more his limbs trembled. Then he felt that his strength was
returning and that he could move. He raised his head and looked at
Zehowah, and just then there was a distant crashing roar, as the
Bedouins began to strike upon the gates.
'It is time,' he said, and taking his sword in his hand he rose from his
seat.
Zehowah came towards him with outstretched hands, wet cheeks and burning
eyes. She stood before him as though to bar the way, and hinder him from
going out.
'What is it to you, whether I go, or stay?' he asked, repeating her own
words.
'What is it? By Allah, it is all my life--I will not let you go!' And
she took hold of his wrists with her weak woman's hands, and tried to
thrust him back.
'Go, Zehowah,' he answered, gently pressing her from him. 'Go now, and
let me meet them alone, knowing that you are safe. For though this be
pity which you feel, I know it is nothing more.'
He would have passed by her, but still she held him and kept before him.
'You shall not go!' she cried. 'I will prevent you with my body. Pity,
you say? Oh, Khaled! Is pity fierce? Is pity strong? Does pity burn like
fire? You shall not go, I say!'
Then her hands grew cold upon his wrists, her cheeks burned and in her
eyes there was a deep and gleaming light. All this Khaled felt and saw,
while he heard the raging of the multitude without. His sight grew again
uncertain. A third time the cool breath blew in his face.
'Yet it cannot be love,' he said uncertainly. Yet she heard him.
'Not love? Khaled, Khaled--my life, my breath, my soul--breath of my
life, life of my spirit--oh, Khaled, you have never loved as I love you
now!'
Her hands let go his wrists and clasped about his neck, and her face was
hidden upon his shoulder while her breath came and went like the gusts
of the burning storm in summer.
But as he held her, Khaled looked up and saw that the Angel of Allah was
before him, having a smiling countenance and bearing in his hand a
bright flame like the crescent moon.
'It is well done, O Khaled,' said the Angel, 'and this is thy reward.
Allah sends thee this to be thy own and to live after thy body, saying
that thou hast well earned it, for love such as thou hast got now is a
rare thing, not common with women and least of all with wives of kings.
And now Allah alone knows what thy fate is to be, but thou shalt be
judged at the end like other men, according to thy deeds, be they good
or evil. And so receive thy soul and do with it as thou wilt.'
The Angel then held out the flame which was like the crescent moon and
it immediately took shape and became the brighter image of Khaled
himself, endowed with immortality, and the knowledge of its own good and
evil. And when Khaled had looked at it fixedly for a moment, being
overcome with joy, the vision of himself disappeared, and he was aware
that it had entered his own body and taken up its life within him.
'Return thanks to Allah, and go thy way to the end,' said the Angel, who
then unfolded his wings and departed to paradise whence he had come.
But Khaled clasped Zehowah tightly in his arms, and looking upwards
repeated the first chapter of the Koran and also the one hundred and
tenth chapter, which is entitled, Assistance. When he had performed
these inward devotions he turned his gaze upon Zehowah and kissed her.
'Praise be to Allah,' he said, 'for this and all blessings. But now let
us defend ourselves if we can, my beloved, for I think my enemies are at
hand.'
And so he would have stooped to take up his sword which had fallen upon
the floor. But still Zehowah held him and would not let him go.
'Not yet, Khaled!' she cried. 'Not yet, soul of my soul! The gates are
very strong, and will withstand this battering for some time.'
'Would you have him whom you love sit still in the net until the hunters
come to catch him?' he asked in a tender voice.
'You said you would wait here,' she pleaded. 'If we must die, let us die
here--our life will be a little longer so.'
'Did I say so? I thought you did not love me then, and I would have
slain a few only, for my own sake, that my blood might not be unavenged.
But now I will slay them all, for your sake, and the bodies of the dead
shall be a rampart for you.'
'Oh, do not go!' she cried again. 'I know a secret passage from the
palace, that leads out by the wall of the city--come quickly, there is
yet time, and we shall escape--for Allah will protect us. Surely, when I
was fainting in your arms I heard an angel's voice--and surely the angel
is yet with us, and will lighten the way as we go.'
'The Angel was indeed here, for he brought me the soul that was
promised, if you loved me. And now all is changed, for if we live, we
get the victory and if we die we shall inherit paradise.'
And Zehowah looked into his eyes and saw the living soul flaming within,
and she believed him.
'If you had always been as you are now, I should have always loved you,'
she said softly, and stooping down she took up his sword and drew it out
and put it into his hand. 'I tried to wield one when you were not
looking,' she said, 'but it hurt my wrist. Come, Khaled--let us go
together.'
Then he kissed her once more, and she kissed him, and putting one arm
about her, he led her swiftly out by the passage towards the great gate.
It was now broad dawn and the light was coming in by the narrow windows.
Zehowah clung to Khaled closely, for the noise of the thundering blows
was terrible and deafening, and the multitude without were shouting to
each other and calling upon Abdullah to come out, for they supposed him
to be in the palace. But the guards and soldiers within had all hidden
themselves though they were awake, for there was no one to command them
nor to lead them, and they dared not open the gate lest they themselves
should be slain in the first rush of the crowd.
Then Khaled and Zehowah paused for a moment near the gate.
'It is better that you should go back, my beloved,' said Khaled. 'Hear
what a multitude of angry men are waiting outside.'
'I will not leave you--neither in life nor in death,' she answered.
'Let it be so, then,' said Khaled, 'and I will do my best. For a hundred
men could not stop the way before me now, and I think that of five
hundred I could slay many.'
So he went up to the gate, and Zehowah stood a little behind him so as
to be free of the first sweep of his sword.
'Abdullah!' cried some of the crowd without, while battering at the
iron-bound doors. 'Abdullah, thou son of Mohammed and father of lies,
come out to us, or we will go to thee!'
'Abdullah, thou thief, thou Persian, thou cheat, come out, and may
boiling water be thy portion!'
'Stand back from the gate, and I will open it to you!' cried Khaled in a
voice that might have been heard across the Red Desert as far as the
shores of the great ocean.
'I, Khaled, will open,' he cried again.
Then there was a great silence and the people fell back a little.
Khaled drew the bolts and unfastened the locks, and opened the gates
inward and stood forth alone in the morning light, his sword in his hand
and his soul burning in his eyes.
'Khaled!' cried the first who saw him, and the cry was taken up.
The shout was great, and full of joy and shook the earth. For the
multitude had grown hot in anger against Abdullah, while they battered
at the gates, supposing that he had slain Khaled. But he himself could
not at first distinguish whether they were angry or glad.
'If any man wishes to take my life,' he cried, 'let him come and take
it.'
And the sword they all knew in battle, began to make a storm of
lightning about his head in the morning sun.
Then the strong man who had wrestled and thrown the other before dawn,
stood out alone and spoke in a loud voice.
'We will have no Sultan but Khaled!' he cried. 'Give us Abdullah that we
may make trappings for our camels from his skin.'
Then Khaled sheathed his sword and came forward from under the gate, and
Zehowah stood veiled beside him.
'Where is this Abdullah?' he asked. 'Find him if you can, for I would
like to speak with him.'
Then there was silence for a space. But by this time Abdullah's men had
fled, for they had already been forced back in the crowding, and so soon
as they saw Khaled standing unhurt under the palace gate, they turned
quickly and ran for their lives to escape from the city, seeing that all
was lost.
'Where is Abdullah?' Khaled asked again.
And a voice from afar off answered, as though heralding the coming of a
great personage.
'Behold Abdullah, the Sultan of Nejed!' it cried.
Then the multitude turned angrily, grasping swords and spears and
breathing curses. But the murmur broke suddenly into a shout of laughter
louder even than the cry for Khaled had been. For a great procession had
entered the square and the people made way for it as it advanced towards
the palace.
First came a score of lepers, singing in hideous voices and dancing in
the early sun, filthy and loathsome to behold. And then came all manner
of cripples, laughing and chattering, with coloured rags fastened to
their staves, an army of distorted apes.
Then, walking alone and feeling his way with his staff came the Sheikh
of the beggars. And in one hand he held the end of a halter, which was
fastened about Abdullah's head and neck and between his teeth, so that
he could not cry out. And the blind man chanted a kasid which he had
composed in the night in honour of Abdullah ibn Mohammed el Herir, the
victorious Sultan of Nejed.
'Upon whom may Allah send much boiling water,' sang the Sheikh of the
beggars after each stave.
And Abdullah, his head and face shaven as bald as an ostrich's egg, was
bent by the weight he carried, for upon his shoulders rode the cripple
whom they called the Ass of Egypt, clapping the wooden shoes he used on
his hands, like cymbals to accompany the song of the blind man. And last
of all came a veiled woman, walking sadly, for she could not escape,
being surrounded and driven on by many scores of beggars, all dancing
and shouting and crying out mock praises of the Sultan Abdullah and his
wife.
But as the procession moved on the laughter increased a hundredfold,
until all men's eyes were blind with mirth, and their breasts were
bursting and aching with so much merriment.
At last the Sheikh of the beggars stood before Khaled holding the
halter. And here he made a deep obeisance, pulling the halter so that
Abdullah nearly fell to the ground.
'In the name of the beggars,' he said, 'I present to your high majesty
the Sultan of Nejed, Abdullah ibn Mohammed, and his chief minister the
Ass of Egypt, and moreover the sultan's wife. May it please your high
majesty to reward the beggars with a few small coins and a little
barley, for having brought his high majesty, the new sultan, safely to
the gate of the palace and to the steps of the throne.'
Thereupon all the beggars, the lepers, the cripples, the blind men and
those of weak understanding fell down together at Khaled's feet.
* * * * *
This is the story of Khaled the believing genius, which he caused to be
written down in letters of gold by the most accomplished scribe in
Nejed, that all men might remember it. But of what afterwards occurred
there is nothing told in the scribe's manuscript. It is recounted,
however, in the commentaries of one Abd ul Latif that Khaled did not
cause Abdullah to be beheaded, nor in any way hurt, save that he was
driven out of the city with his wife, where certain Bedouins affirmed
that he lived for many years with her in great destitution. But it is
well known that after this Zehowah bore Khaled many strong sons, whose
children and children's children reigned gloriously for many generations
in Nejed. And Khaled and Zehowah died full of years on the same day, and
lie buried together in a garden without the Hasa gate, and the pilgrims
from Ajman and the east visit their tombs even to the present time.
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.
MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
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Transcriber's Notes:
Minor punctuation corrections have been made without comment.
On p. 155 the word "Sham" has a macron (straight line) above the "a" in
the original text which has been removed in this e-text.
A Table of Contents has been created by the transcriber to aid reader
navigation in this e-text.
Word Variations:
"carcase(s)" (2) (Br. sp.) and "carcass" (1)
"Khaled ibn Walid" (1) and "Khaled ibn Walad" (1) (both referred to as
"the Sword of the Lord")
End of Project Gutenberg's Khaled, A Tale of Arabia, by F. Marion Crawford