Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/172

160 eyes became darkness and there befell a sore battle between them. They swayed to and fro, fighting, throughout the length and breadth of the valley, whilst all eyes were fixed upon them in admiration: after which they wheeled about and foined and feinted a great while, and as often as Bertaut opened on his sister a gate of war, she parried his attack and put it to nought, of the goodliness of her fashion and her strength and skill in horsemanship and the use of arms.

They abode on this wise till the dust hung vaulted over their heads and they were hidden from men’s eyes; and she ceased not to baffle Bertaut and stop the way upon him, till he was weary and his courage ebbed and his resolution was broken and his strength weakened; whereupon she smote him on the nape, that the sword came out gleaming from the tendons of his throat and God hurried his soul to the fire and ill is the abiding-place [to which he went]. Then Meryem wheeled about in the mid-field and the stead of strife and offered battle, crying out and saying, ‘Who is for fighting? Who is for jousting? Let no sluggard or weakling come forth to me to-day; ay, let none come forth to me but the champions of the enemies of the Faith, that I may give them to drink the cup of ignominious punishment. O worshippers of idols, O misbelievers, O froward folk, verily this day shall the faces of the people of the True Faith be whitened and theirs be blackened who deny the Compassionate One!’

When the king saw his eldest son slain, he smote his face and rent his clothes and called out to his second son, saying, ‘O Bertous, thou who art surnamed Khura es Sous, go forth, O my son, in haste and do battle with thy sister Meryem; avenge me thy brother’s death on her