Khaled, A Tale of Arabia Part 6

He was displeased, for he had supposed that she would love him for his deeds and for his wounds and that she would speak differently. But though she tended him and bound his wounds, and bathed his brow with perfumed waters, and laid pillows under his head and fanned him, as a slave might have done, he saw that there was no warmth in her cheek, and that the depths of her eyes were empty, and that her hands were neither hot nor cold. By all these signs he knew that she felt no love for him, so he spoke coldly to her.

'Is it for me to be pleased or displeased with the deeds of my lord and master?' she asked. 'Nevertheless, thousands are even now blessing your name and returning thanks to Allah for having sent them a preserver in the hour of danger. I am but one of them.'

'I would rather see a faint light in your eyes, as of a star rising in the desert than hear the blessings of all the men of Nejed. I would rather that your hand were cold when it touches mine, and your cheek hot when I kiss it, than that your father should bestow upon me all the treasures of Riad.'

'Is that love?' asked Zehowah with a laugh. 'A cold hand, a hot cheek, a bright eye?'

Khaled was silent, for he saw that she understood his words but not his meaning. It was now noon and it was very hot, even in the inner shade of the harem, and Khaled was glad to rest after the hard fighting, for his many slight wounds smarted with the healing balsam, and his heart was heavy and discontented.

Then Zehowah called a slave woman to fan him with a palm leaf, and presently she brought him meat and rice and dates to eat, and cool drink in a golden cup, and she sat at his feet while he refreshed himself.

'How many did you slay with your own hand?' she asked at last, taking up the good sword which lay beside him on the carpet.

CHAPTER IV

Khaled pondered deeply, being uncertain what to do, and trying to find out some action which could win for him what he wanted. Zehowah received no answer to her question as to the number of enemies he had slain and she did not ask again, for she thought that he was weary and wished to rest in silence.

'What do you like best in the whole world?' he asked after a long time, to see what she would say.

'I like you best,' she answered, smiling, while she still played with his sword.

'That is very strange,' Khaled answered, musing. But the colour rose darkly in his cheeks above his beard, for he was pleased now as he had been displeased before.

'Why is it strange?' asked Zehowah. 'Are you not the palm tree in my plain, and a tower of refuge for my people?'

'And will you dry up the well from which the tree draws life, and take away the corner-stone of the tower's foundation?'

'You speak in fables,' said Zehowah, laughing.

'Yet you imagined the fable yourself, when you likened me to a palm and to a tower. But I am no lover of allegories. The sword is my argument, and my wit is in my arm. The wall by the tree is the wall of love, and the chief foundation of the tower is the love of Zehowah. If you destroy that, the tree will wither and the tower will fall.'

'Surely there was never such a man as you,' Zehowah answered, half jesting but half in earnest. 'You are as one who has bought a white mare; and though she is fleet, and good to look at, and obedient to his voice and knee, yet he is discontented because she cannot speak to him, and he would fain have her black instead of white, and if possible would teach her to sing like a Persian nightingale.'

'Is it then not natural in a woman to love man? Have you heard no tales of love from the story-tellers of the harem?'

'I have heard many such tales, but none of them were told of me,'

Zehowah replied. 'Will you drink again? Is the drink too sweet, or is it not cool?'

She had risen from her seat and held the golden cup, bending down to him, so that her face was near his. He laid his hand upon her shoulder.

'Hear me, Zehowah,' he said. 'I want but one thing in the world, and it was for that I came out of the Red Desert to be your husband. And that thing I will have, though the price be greater than rubies, or than blood, or than life itself.'

'If it is mine, I freely give it to you. If it is not mine, take it by force, or I will help you to take it by a stratagem, if I can. Am I not your wife?'

She spoke thus, supposing from his face that he meant some treasure that could be taken by strength or by wile, for she could not believe a man could speak so seriously of a mere thought such as love.

'Neither my right hand nor your wit can give me this, but only your heart, Zehowah,' he answered, still holding her and looking at her.

But now she did not laugh, for she saw that he was greatly in earnest.

'You are still talking of love,' she said. 'And you are not jesting. I do not know what to answer you. Gladly will I say, I love you. Is that all? What is it else? Are those the words?'

'I care little for the words. But I will have the reality, though it cost your life and mine.'

'My life? Will you take my life, for the sake of a thought?'

'A thought!' he exclaimed. 'Do you call love a thought? I had not believed a woman could be so cold as that.'

'If not a thought, what then? I have spoken the truth. If it were a treasure, or anything that can be taken, you could take it, and I could help you. But if the possibility of possessing it lie not in deeds, it lies in thoughts, and is itself a thought. If you can teach me, I will think what you will; but if you cannot teach me, who shall? And how will it profit you to take my life or your own?'

'Is it possible that love is only a thought?' asked Khaled, speaking rather to himself than to her.

'It must be,' she answered. 'The body is what it is in the eyes of others, but the soul is what it thinks itself to be, happy or unhappy, loving or not loving.'

'You are too subtle for me, Zehowah,' Khaled said. 'Yet I know that this is not all true.'

For he knew that he possessed no soul, and yet he loved her. Moreover he could think himself happy or unhappy.

'You are too subtle,' he repeated. 'I will take my sword again and I will go out and fight, and pursue the enemy and waste their country, for it is not so hard to cut through steel as to touch the heart of a woman who does not love, and it is easier to tear down towers and strongholds of stone with the naked hands than to build a temple upon the moving sand of an empty heart.'

Khaled would have risen at once, but Zehowah took his hand and entreated him to stay with her.

'Will you go out in the heat of the day, wounded and wearied?' she asked. 'Surely you will take a fever and die before you have followed the Shammars so far as two days' journey.'

'My wounds are slight, and I am not weary,' Khaled answered. 'When the smith has heated the iron in the forge, does he wait until it is cold before striking?'

'But think also of the soldiers, who have striven hard, and cannot thus go out upon a great expedition without preparation as well as rest.'

'I will take those whom I can find. And if they will go with me, it is well. But if not, I will go alone, and they and the rest will follow after.'

'It is summer, too,' said Zehowah, keeping him back. 'Is this a time to go out into the northern desert? Both men and beasts will perish by the way.'

'Has not Allah bound every man's fate about his neck? And can a man cast it from him?'

'I know not otherwise, but if heat and hunger and thirst do not kill the men, they will certainly destroy the beasts, whose names are not recorded by Asrael, and who have no destiny of their own.'

'You hinder me,' said Khaled. 'And yet you do not know how many of the Shammar may be yet lurking within a day's march of the city, slaying your people, burning their houses and destroying their harvest. Let me go. Will you love me better if I stay?'

'You will be the better able to get the victory.'

'Will you love me better if I stay?'

'If you go now, you may fail in your purpose and perish as well. How could I love you at all then?'

'It is the victory you love then--not me?'