Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/214

 curses. Come with me and Musa Al-Mutasim. Prostrate thy unworthy self before … ”

“Coward!” screamed Koom Khan, who saw that his pet scheme, the murder of Tollemache Wade by the governor's hands, was slipping away. “Fool! Drunkard! Jew! Christian! O thou abuser of the salt! O thou cold of countenance! O thou son of a burnt father! O thou spawn of exceeding filth! O thou whose back should be slippered with many slipperings! O thou …”

“I am all that,” said the governor, inclining his head with a fine show of humility, “and a great and wicked sinner. Thus, too, is Musa Al-Mutasim,” pointing at “The Basin,” who stood motionless, though he was choking with inward laughter. “And that is just why we go on pilgrimage to cleanse our souls …”

“Curse your filthy souls!”

“Peace, brother Moslem! Peace and patience!” said the governor, making a mental note of the insults the other had heaped on his head and promising to repay them later on with interest. There was no hurry.

And, half an hour later, he and the renegade Arab were off, astride swift sowarri racing dromedaries, toward the southeast, away from the Darh-i-Sultani, skirting Tamerlanistan's southern frontier, in the direction of the Persian Gulf.

They drove their grunting, protesting animals mercilessly, at top speed, through an arid land spotted with sweet-scented shih grass and dwarf acacia, and torn