195
1199. "'Dulardukht is a woman, but a rock, like a cliff,[1] her slave[2] is wounded[3] by none, but he wounds others. She had little nephews: Rosan and Rodia; now she is seated as sovereign of Kadjet'hi, "the Mighty"[4] is she called.
1200. "'We heard news of the death overseas of her sister. The viziers were distressed, they refrained from assembling a privy council:[5] "How can we venture to report the extinction of a face which was the light of the lands?"—Roshak is a slave, the chief of many thousand slaves.
1201. "'Roshak said: "Even if I be killed (for mine absence), I shall not be at the mourning! I go into the plain, I will reive, I will fill myself with booty; I shall come home enriched, I shall be back in good time. When the sovereign[6] goes forth to bewail her sister, I too will accompany her."
1202. "'He said to us, his underlings: "I will go, come with me!" He took of us a hundred slaves, all chosen by him. By day in the sunlight we reived, by night also we watched; many a caravan we broke up, we unloaded the treasure for ourselves.
1203. "'One very dark night we were wandering over the plains; there appeared to us certain great lights in the midst of the field; we said: "Is it the sun strayed down from heaven to earth!" Perplexed, we gave our minds to torturing thought.
1204. "'Some said: "It is the dawn!"[7] others said: "It is the moon!" We, drawn up in fighting array, moved towards it—I saw it from very near—we made a wide circuit round it, we came and surrounded it. From that light came a voice speaking to us.
1205. "'It said to us: "Who are you, O cavaliers? tell
