Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/151

127 Amalekites, with whom he set out for Yemen and sat down before the city of Oman. Jemrcan and Saadan sallied forth and gave him battle, and there were slain of the Muslims much people, wherefore the true believers retired into the city and shut the gates and manned the walls. At this juncture the two Marids arrived and seeing the Muslims beleaguered, waited till the night, when they fell upon the infidels and plied them with sharp swords of the swords of the Jinn, each twelve cubits long, if a man smote therewith a rock, he would cleave it in sunder. They attacked the idolaters, shouting, ‘God is Most Great! He giveth aid and victory and forsaketh those who deny the faith of Abraham the Friend!’ whilst fire issued from their mouths and nostrils, and they made great slaughter amongst them. Thereupon the infidels ran out of their tents and seeing these strange things, were confounded and their flesh shuddered and their reason fled. So they snatched up their arms and fell on each other, whilst the Marids shore off their heads, as a reaper cuts grain, crying, ‘God is Most Great! We are the henchmen of King Gherib, the friend of Muraash, King of the Jinn!’ The sword ceased not to go round amongst them till the night was half spent, when the misbelievers, imagining that the mountains were all Afrits, loaded their tents and treasure and baggage upon camels and made off; and the first to fly was Agib. The Marids ceased not from the pursuit, till they had driven them far away into the hills and deserts; and but fifty thousand infidels of two hundred thousand escaped with their lives and made for their own land, wounded and discomfited.

Meanwhile, the Muslims gathered together, marvelling at this that had betided the infidels and fearing the tribesmen of the Jinn; but presently the latter returned and said to them, ‘O host of the Muslims, your lord King Gherib and his brother Sehim salute you; they are the guests of