Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 1).djvu/224

224 his evening devotions, instead of his troop of docile wives, he found an army of bearded warriors! He started, for they really looked very dreadful.

Jarko the Tartar and Zibella the Indian commanded the light cavalry; and on this occasion the wonder was wrought, that one woman would obey another's orders. To be sure, the times were evil.

The little army formed in three divisions, and awaited the enemy's onslaught. Sidi Ahmed came rushing on in hot haste. But when he saw this force, with beards flowing down to their stirrup-irons, his heart sank into the depths of his baggy pantaloons. Before he had quite recovered from the shock, a tall warrior rode forth and called to him: "Sidi Ahmed! if you are not a coward, come out and try your strength with me in single combat."

This hero was Zibella, so greatly skilled in casting the knife. Nor did her cunning betray her. She flung her javelin, and Sidi Ahmed was that instant a dead man; he had not time to drop from his horse.

The rest of the Amazons, under the command of Jarko, now pressed on the enemy. But Sidi Ahmed's followers did not like the look of things. Five halfpence are indeed a handsome sum, but even for such a guerdon as this a man will not give his skin to be punctured ad libitum. So each man flung his shield over his back, which he turned on the adversary, and the horsemen fled as fast as feet could carry them, shouting as they went: "The Tartars are on us, the barbarians are at our heels! Ten thousand—twenty thousand—a hundred thousand fighting men have risen up to protect Barak Hageb! Ride for your lives—ride! The Tartars shoot with lightnings!"

"Now you see that my prophecy is fulfilled!" said Roxana to Barak Hageb. "Sidi Ahmed lies dead before you."

"And mine, too, will yet come true," said Ildibah. "Our enemy's realm will perish. Let us hasten to Kerman!"

So they cut off the dead Sultan's head, and set it on a lance. With this badge of victory they rode in triumph to Kerman, their followers increasing from hour to hour. The soldiers who had ran away came out of their hiding-places, and joined the array, so that it was a large force by the time they crossed the frontier. The gates of the towns were flung open joyfully, for every one was now ready to say that Sidi Ahmed had, in truth, been a tyrant, and Barak Hageb was hailed as a deliverer, and was finally proclaimed as Sultan.

This conclusion, which is so strange that no one will believe this history, though it is the literal truth, happened in the year after the flight of the Prophet 612.