Page:Marion Crawford - Khaled.djvu/232

 youngest, and last of all I will speak, and let us see whether we can agree.'

'Let us kill the man and bury him, and then cast lots among us for the woman,' said one.

'No,' said the next, a man who had twice made the pilgrimage, and was much respected, 'we cannot do this, for the man is a true believer, and evil will befall us if we shed his blood. Let us rather keep him here, and purify his hide every day with our staves, until Khaled is in no more danger, and then we will take him to the palace and deliver him up.'

'It is to be feared,' said the Sheikh of the beggars, 'that the man might chance to die of this sort of purification, though indeed it be very wholesome for him, and I am not altogether against it.'

'Let us make him our slave,' said a third who had himself been the slave of a poor man who had died without heirs. 'The fellow is strong. Let us buy millstones and make him grind barley for us in this cellar. In this way he will not eat our food for nothing.'

After this many others gave advice of the same kind. But while they were talking there was a great clattering and noise upon the stone steps which led down into the cellar, and a man fell over the last step and rolled over and over into the very midst of the council, railing and lamenting.