Page:Marion Crawford - Khaled.djvu/268

 a few small coins and a little barley, for having brought his high majesty, the new sultan, safely to the gate of the palace and to the steps of the throne.'

Thereupon all the beggars, the lepers, the cripples, the blind men and those of weak understanding fell down together at Khaled's feet.

This is the story of Khaled the believing genius, which he caused to be written down in letters of gold by the most accomplished scribe in Nejed, that all men might remember it. But of what afterwards occurred there is nothing told in the scribe's manuscript. It is recounted, however, in the commentaries of one Abdul Latif that Khaled did not cause Abdullah to be beheaded, nor in any way hurt, save that he was driven out of the city with his wife, where certain Bedouins affirmed that he lived for many years with her in great destitution. But it is well known that after this Zehowah bore Khaled many strong sons, whose children and children's children reigned gloriously for many generations in Nejed. And Khaled and Zehowah died full of years on the same day, and lie buried together in a garden without the Hasa gate, and the pilgrims from Ajman and the east visit their tombs even to the present time.