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intent.” Then said he, “Bring him to me.” So they brought me up to him, and he put his finger into my right eye and pulled it out; and thenceforward I became one-eyed as ye see me. Then he caused me to be bound hand and foot and put in a chest and said to the headsman, “Take this fellow and carry him forth of the city and slay him and leave him for the beasts and birds to eat.” So the headsman carried me without the city to the midst of the desert, where he took me out of the chest, bound hand and foot as I was, and would have bandaged my eyes, that he might slay me. But I wept sore till I made him weep, and looking at him, repeated the following verses:
I counted on you as a coat of dart-proof mail toward The foeman’s arrows from my breast. Alas! ye are his sword!
I hoped in you to succour me in every evil chance, Although my right hand to my left no more should help afford.
Yet stand aloof nor cast your lot with those who do me hate, And let my foemen shoot their shafts against your whilom lord!
If you refuse to succour me against my enemies, At least be neutral, nor to me nor them your aid accord.
And these also:
How many of my friends, methought, were coats of mail! And so they were, indeed, but on my foeman’s part.
Unerring shafts and true I deemed them; and they were Unerring shafts, indeed, alas, but in my heart!
When the headsman heard this (now he had been my father’s headsman and I had done him kindness) he said, “O my lord what can I do, being but a slave commanded?” Then he said, “Fly for thy life and never return to this country, or thou art lost and I with thee.” As says one of the poets:
Escape with thy life, if oppression betide thee, And let the house tell of its builder’s fate!
Country for country thou’lt find, if thou seek it; Life for life never, early or late.
It is strange men should dwell in the house of abjection, When the plain of God’s world is so wide and so great!
