"'For whom are these ?'
The tribesmen asked.
"'This one is for the poor;
And comes a stranger hungry, or pursued
By night or enemies, it is for him.
This other'—and his voice sank low and shook
With sudden eagerness—' is Malkatoon's.'
"'And who is Malkatoon?'
"'A benison Withheld by Allah until my trial day
Is done—a Spirit out of Paradise—
And this way comes an Angel leading her,
For in the distance I have heard him cry,
Be ready.' "
Here the high Sultana paused
To closer clasp and kiss the little lord
Upon her breast for pride, and then again
For love o'erbrimming. "Oh, my Mahommed!
'Tis love that makes the bread and pours the wine,
And is in turn the bread and wine for love."
The words were dark, and yet, as morning falls
On struggling mist, the look she gave him saved
The meaning of the thought. Then, to the tale
Returning, she, "And so the Tribe was cared
For by the Sheik, with everything of theirs,
The winged and hoofed, the speaking and the dumb;
The dogs had meat, the cattle pasturage;
Even the camels shed their foxen shag,
And ere long rounded into comeliness
Of health and strength. And when at last
There was no charity or duty more
To others owing, he arose, and up
To Allah's gate despatched his patient soul
In ihram white and seamless, there to sit,
And watch and pray the breaking of the sign
The Dervish asked of him.
Othman and the Lord of Eskischeer
"And Othman had
A bosom friend, the Lord of Eskischeer,
Youthful and warm of fancy, like himself;
And him he one day told of Malkatoon,
And of her sire ascetic in the cave
Above the spring; and of the spring he spake,
A wayside comforter of suffering men,
With endless cheer of draught and song and dance,
Lest that way they should pass, and scoffing say,
It is not true that God is everywhere.
And then he told of how he came to see
The wondrous child, and paused to bless the chance—
A favor shaken from the Prophet's sleeve!
And since that hour, he said, the beautiful
Apparent in the other fairest things
Was not for him. Nay, looked he in the sky
At night, the utmost splendor of the stars
Was all a-rust.
"'And is she then so fair ?'
The listener asked.
"'I know not in the world,'
Our Othman said, 'by which to make thee know
How fair she is, surpassing all her kind—
Nothing of perfume to the nostrils sweet,
Nothing lovely to the eye, or to ear,
Nothing of music.'
"Thereupon they gave
Each other hand, and went their several ways:
Othman, a lover with his love in love,
And doing childish things, as if the air
Were not alive with elves to laugh at him;
Now grumbling to his horse of Malkatoon;
Now whipping quatrains rude and cradleish
Until they sung of her as heroine;
Or when a breeze came stepping o'er the grass,
Lusty with life, and promising to go
A distance, with finger or his sword
Upon the sluggish air he wrote her name,
And bade the breeze, 'Ho! slave of Solomon!
Take thou this writing to my Malkatoon,
Nor say thou canst not find her. In a cave
Scarce two hours hence by measure of my steed
In easy gait, a daughter's part she doth
By old Edebali, the Dervish saint
Well known alike to kings and common men.
Below the cave, and in its shade at noon,
There is a spring, the mother of a pool
Of lucent water. There I saw her first,
And there with equal fortune it may be
That, hasting, thou shalt find her; and if so—
O happy breeze!—be careful not to give
Her fright by any rudeness, but approach
Her gently—gently—would 'twere mine to teach
Thee by example! Fingers of the air
Should have a tender touch; therefore I yield
Thee leave to lift her hair—'tis black as night—
And bare her brow, and blow upon her eyes
A breath not strong enough to more than cool
The dewy lids; or thou mayst fluff her hair,
And with it whip the whiteness of her neck,
So thou disturb her not; for it may be
She dreams of me. Begone!'
"Thus Othman went,
Never a man so with his love in love.
Far otherwise the Lord of Eskischeer!
The reins hung low upon his courser's neck,
And nigh asleep, it drowsed and drowsed along,
While he, forgetful of his armed heels,
And of his journey, and the mine of things
About him and above, in grim debate,
But silent rode, his mien that of one
Just stumbled upon a wonder of the world
Within him, half a feeling, half a thought,
A fancy formless, faint, a vague desire
At first without an object, and so strange
He could but question it. So on a waste
Of waters from the bursting of a wave
There springs a spray so pale and thin it seems
To mock the searching eye; and so as clouds
That ere long mantle Heaven, and possess