Page:Marion Crawford - Khaled.djvu/22

 sun. The angel held the locust up before Khaled, and then let it fall. But as it fell it became at once a beautiful bay mare with round black eyes wide apart and an arching tail which swept down to the sand like a river of silk.

'Take this mare,' said the angel; 'she is of the pure breed of Nejed and as swift as the wind, but mortal like thyself.'

'But how shall I ride her without saddle or bridle?' asked Khaled.

'That is true,' answered the angel.

He laid leaves of the ghada upon the mare's back and they became a saddle, and placed a twig in her mouth and it turned into a bit and bridle.

Khaled thanked the angel and mounted.

'Farewell and prosper, and put thy trust in Allah, and forget not the day of judgment,' the angel said, and immediately returned to paradise.

So Khaled was left alone in the Red Desert, a living man obliged to shift for himself, liable to suffer hunger and thirst or to be slain by robbers, with no worldly possessions but his sword, his bay mare, and the clothes on his back. He knew moreover that he was more than two hundred miles from the city of Riad, and he knew that he could not accomplish this journey in less than four days. For when he was one of the genii he had often watched men toiling through desert on foot,