Page:Man in the Panther's Skin.djvu/217

 1199. Dulardukht is a woman, but a rock, like a cliff, her slave is wounded by none, but he wounds others. She had little nephews: Rosan and Rodia; now she is seated as sovereign of Kadjet'hi, "the Mighty" is she called.

1200. We heard news of the death overseas of her sister. The viziers were distressed, they refrained from assembling a privy council: "How can we venture to report the extinction of a face which was the light of the lands?"—Roshak is a slave, the chief of many thousand slaves.

1201. Roshak said: "Even if I be killed (for mine absence), I shall not be at the mourning! I go into the plain, I will reive, I will fill myself with booty; I shall come home enriched, I shall be back in good time. When the sovereign goes forth to bewail her sister, I too will accompany her."

1202. He said to us, his underlings: "I will go, come with me!" He took of us a hundred slaves, all chosen by him. By day in the sunlight we reived, by night also we watched; many a caravan we broke up, we unloaded the treasure for ourselves.

1203. One very dark night we were wandering over the plains; there appeared to us certain great lights in the midst of the field; we said: "Is it the sun strayed down from heaven to earth!" Perplexed, we gave our minds to torturing thought.

1204. Some said: "It is the dawn!" others said: "It is the moon!" We, drawn up in fighting array, moved towards it—I saw it from very near—we made a wide circuit round it, we came and surrounded it. From that light came a voice speaking to us.

1205. It said to us: "Who are you, O cavaliers? tell