Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/166



“Hansua ke hiyah, khurpa ke git!” remarked Wahab al-Shaitan, the chief executioner, to Mahsud Hakki, the head eunuch, meaning by the gliding, purring words that it was “the wedding of the sickle, but that all the song was for the hoe”—an extravagant Oriental simile immediately understood by the other, who untucked his fat legs from beneath his fat haunches, rose, and stretched himself.

“Yes,” he said. “It is Al Nakia who rules. It is Al Nakia who gives forth pearls of wisdom and justice and shining equity, judiciously tempered by the swish of the sword when it is red. It is Al Nakia whose eyes fatten the cattle and frighten the wolves. Yet is it Aziza Nurmahal whose praise is babbled in bazaar and mosque and mart. Al Nakia wants nothing except—he told me so himself when I asked him—the personal satisfaction of knowing that he is doing a measure of good, that he is achieving a measure of success. He said so—by Allah!”

A great, naïve wonder overspread Wahab al-Shaitan's plum-colored features.

“Last night,” he said, a little hesitatingly, like a man who does not expect to be believed, “the princess