The Legionaries were hard put to it to obey the Master's order never
to express surprise or admiration. But they kept silence, though their
eyes were busy; and presently through another smaller gate they all
clattered into a _hosh_, or court, facing what obviously must have
been the central citadel of Jannati Shahr.
Bara Miyan pulled sharply on the red, silver-broidered reins and
cut back the frothing lip of his barb. With a slide almost on its
haunches, along the soft, golden pavement, the horse came to a
quivering stand. All halted. And for a moment, the stamping of the
high-nerved horses' hoofs echoed up along the tall citadel with its
latticed windows and its machicolated parapet a hundred and fifty feet
in air.
"Well ridden, O Frank! Well ridden by thee and by all thy men
of Feringistan!" exclaimed Bara Miyan, with what seemed real
friendliness, as he sat there on his high saddle, gravely stroking his
beard. "It was a test for thee and thine, to see, by Allah! if the men
of the unbelieving nations be also men like us of Araby!
"We of the Empty Abodes are 'born on horseback.' But ye, white as the
white hand of Musa (Moses) have houses that, so I have heard, move on
iron roads.
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