Part 9 (1/2)

Certainly Allah created him forty-fold shameless.

So it is not in the Desert. One came to me weeping-- The Avenger of Blood on his track--I took him in keeping.

Demanding not whom he had slain, I refreshed him, I fed him As he were even a brother. But Eblis had bred him.

He was the son of an ape, ill at ease in his clothing, He talked with his head, hands and feet. I endured him with loathing.

Whatever his spirit conceived his countenance showed it As a frog shows in a mud-puddle. Yet I abode it!

I fingered my beard and was dumb, in silence confronting him.

_His_ soul was too shallow for silence, e'en with Death hunting him.

I said: 'Tis his weariness speaks,' but, when he had rested, He chirped in my face like some sparrow, and, presently, jested!

Wherefore slew I that stranger? He brought me dishonour.

I saddled my mare, Bijli, I set him upon her.

I gave him rice and goat's flesh. He bared me to laughter.

When he was gone from my tent, swift I followed after, Taking my sword in my hand. The hot wine had filled him.

Under the stars he mocked me--therefore I killed him!

CHAPTER HEADINGS

THE NAULAHKA

We meet in an evil land That is near to the gates of h.e.l.l.

I wait for thy command To serve, to speed or withstand.

And thou sayest, I do not well?

Oh Love, the flowers so red Are only tongues of flame, The earth is full of the dead, The new-killed, restless dead.

There is danger beneath and o'erhead, And I guard thy gates in fear Of peril and jeopardy, Of words thou canst not hear, Of signs thou canst not see-- And thou sayest 'tis ill that I came?

This I saw when the rites were done, And the lamps were dead and the G.o.ds alone, And the grey snake coiled on the altar stone-- Ere I fled from a Fear that I could not see, And the G.o.ds of the East made mouths at me.

Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown, For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian down; And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear: 'A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.'

Beat off in our last fight were we?

The greater need to seek the sea.

For Fortune changeth as the moon To caravel and picaroon.

Then Eastward Ho! or Westward Ho!