Page:Marion Crawford - Khaled.djvu/197

 which it will be some day examined, whereas the truth, being always coincident with the reality, can never be wholly refuted.

Khaled therefore hesitated as to whether he should tell his story from the beginning, or hold his peace; but in the end he decided to speak, because it was intolerable to him to be thought an evildoer by her.

'You make haste to disbelieve, before you have heard all,' he said at last. 'Hear me to the end. I have told you that I slew the Indian prince. That was before I became a man. You yourself could not understand how I was able to enter the palace and carry him away without being observed. But as I was at that time able to fly and to make both myself and him invisible, this need not surprise you. If you do not believe that I did it, let us order a litter to be brought for you, and I will take my mare and a sufficient number of attendants, and let us ride southwards into the Red Desert. There I will show you the man's bones. You will probably recognise them by the gold chain which he wore about his neck and by his ring. After that, when I had buried him, the messenger of Allah came to me, and because the man was an unbeliever, and had intended to embrace the faith outwardly, having evil in his heart, Allah did not destroy me immediately, but commanded that the angel Asrael should write my name in the book of