Page:Marion Crawford - Khaled.djvu/34

 'And what do you desire of his majesty? I ask that I may inform him beforehand. So you will have a better reception.'

'Tell the Sultan,' said Khaled, 'that a man is here who has neither father nor mother nor any possessions beyond a swift mare, a keen sword and a strong hand, but who is come nevertheless to ask in marriage Zehowah, the Sultan's daughter.'

The minister smiled and gazed at Khaled in silence for a moment, but when he had looked keenly at bis face, he became grave.

'It may be,' he thought, 'that this is some great prince who comes thus simply as in a disguise, and it were best not to anger him.'

'I will deliver your message,' he answered aloud, 'though it is a strange one. It is customary for those who come to ask for a maiden in marriage to bring gifts—and to receive others in return,' he added.

'I neither bring gifts nor ask any,' said Khaled. 'Allah is great and will provide me with what I need.'

'I fear that he will not provide you with the Sultan's daughter for a wife,' said the minister as he went away, but Khaled did not hear the words, though he would have cared little if he had.

Now it chanced that Zehowah was sitting in a balcony surrounded with lattice, over the courtyard, on that morning and she had seen Khaled enter, leading