Page:Marion Crawford - Khaled.djvu/84

 horses and camels and arms; after which he went down into the plain and laid waste the country about Haïl. He took the city as the Shammars had taken Riad. For he himself got upon the wall at night, with the strongest and the bravest of his followers, and slew the guards and opened the gate just before the dawn. But there was no Khaled in Haïl to rally the soldiers and give them heart to turn and make a stand in the streets.

Khaled then entered the palace and took the Sultan of Shammar alive, not suffering him to be hurt, for he wished to bring him to Riad. This Sultan was a man of middle age, having only one eye, and also otherwise ill-favoured, besides being cowardly and fat. So Khaled ordered that he should be put into a litter, and the litter into a cage, and the cage slung between two camels. But he commanded that the women of the harem should be well treated and brought before him, that he might see them, intending to bring back the most beautiful of them as presents to his father-in-law.

'Surely,' said the men who were with him, 'you will keep the fairest for yourself.'

But Khaled turned angrily upon them.

'Have I not lately married the most beautiful woman in the world?' he asked. 'I tell you it is for her sake that I have destroyed the Shammars. But the Sultan shall have the best of these women, and afterwards the rest of them will be divided amongst you by lot.'