Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/51

Rh and an attendant archer had entered, with them. The harnessed eagles could not get at the meat, and so the flying-machine rose higher and higher. When it had ascended so high that the earth could hardly be seen, the giant ordered his companion to shoot an arrow heavenwards. Before ascending, Nimrûd had taken the precaution to dip the tips of the arrows in blood. Arrow after arrow was shot heavenwards, and, when the quiver was emptied, the pole with the meat on it was taken down and thrust through the opening in the bottom of the box. On finding themselves thus baulked of their food, the wearied eagles of course began to descend, and on reaching the earth, Nimrûd pointed to the arrows which had fallen back to the earth as a proof that he had wounded Allah; while the latter, as he boasted, had not been able to do him the least harm. This blasphemy completely deceived the people, whose confidence in Nimrûd had been rudely shaken by Ibrahim’s deliverance from the fiery furnace, and they again began to worship the cunning giant. Allah, however, did not let his wickedness go unpunished. The more clearly to show the greatness of His power, the Almighty employed the smallest of His creatures in order to humble the most arrogant. A sand-fly was sent to enter the giant’s nostrils and make its way to his brain, where for two hundred years it tormented Nimrûd day and night until he died. Towards the end his agony was so intense that he could only get relief by employing a man to strike him constantly on the head with an iron hammer.