Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/387

 and soon only a cloud of dust indicates to his pursuers the course he has taken.

Here where the sun descends to the horizon almost in a vertical line the twilight is exceedingly brief and soon dark night had swallowed up every trace of the fugitive. The Turks, without provision for themselves or water for their horses, realized that they were some twelve or fifteen hours away from home and in an unknown locality. What could they do but return and bring to their irate master the unwelcome news that both the horse and the rider with the money were gone? Not until the third evening did they reach Mardin, half dead of exhaustion and with horses hardly able to put one foot ahead of the other. Their only consolation was that here there was another instance of Arabian perfidy for them to revile. The traitor's horse, to be sure, they were obliged to praise, and they had to confess that such an animal could hardly be paid for too dearly.

Next day, just when the Imam is calling to morning prayer, the pasha hears hoofbeats under his window, and into the courtyard the sheikh is riding entirely unabashed. "Sidi," he calls up, "Sir, do you want your money or my horse?"

Somewhat less quickly than the Arab had ridden we reached on the fifth day the foot of the mountain and near a clear rivulet the large village of Tillaja (Tshilaga), doubtless the ancient Tilsaphata, where the starving army of Jovian on its retreat from Persia to Nisibin found its first provisions. There I learned that on that very morning Mehmet-Pasha had started with an army on an expedition against the Kurds in the north. I at once decided to join him and, leaving the caravan, arrived at his camp that same evening. There I was told that Hafiss-Pasha had sent a guard of fifty horsemen to meet us, whom we had missed, because they had looked for us in the direction of Sindjar.