Unless, indeed,
all this meant ambush. But to look into those grave, deep eyes, to
see that furrowed countenance of noble, straight-forward uprightness,
seemed to negative any such suspicion.
"We have come to bring ye wondrous gifts," the Master volunteered,
wanting to strike while the iron was hot.
"That is well," assented Bara Miyan. "But never before have the Franks
come to this center of the Empty Abodes."
"Even Allah had to say 'Be!' before anything was!" (_i.e._, there must
be a first time for everything).
This answer, pat from a favorite verse of the Koran, greatly pleased
Bara Miyan. He smiled gravely, and nodded.
"Allah made all men," he affirmed. "Mayhap the Franks and we be
brothers. Have ye come by way of Mecca?"
"Yea. And sorry brotherhood did the Mecca men offer us, O Sheik! So,
too, the men of Beni Harb. Together, they slew five of us. But we be
fighting-men, Bara Miyan. We took a great vengeance. All that tribe
of Beni Harb we brushed with the wing of Azrael, save only the Great
Apostate. And from the men of the 'Navel of the World'--Mecca--we
exacted greater tribute than even death!"
The Master's voice held a quiet menace that by no means escaped Bara
Miyan.
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