Page:The Celebrated Romance of the Stealing of the Mare.djvu/121

Mounted his running camel, and went from them a wanderer.
And he cut a road through the void, the empty plains and the mountains.
Till that he reached your land and housed within your dwellings.
Clad as a poet he came and entered in disguisement.
And he learned the way of you all, unknown to you, in secret.
And he waited the coming of night till the dark should spread its curtain,
Sitting thus in your midst with beating heart till the night time.
For he is a master of wiles, perplexing with disguisements, —
For whiles as a Syrian he comes, and whiles as a Mogrebbin,
Whiles as from Egypt's land, or a black slave, or from Berber,
Or as a singer of songs from the utmost lands of the Persians.
And the day he came to thy tribe, he slew Sahel ibn Aaf,
Him, O Prince, who Is known to men for his deeds of evil.
And with him he slew Zohwa bint Nasser, his companion.
He, the thief of thy mare, protecting thus thy daughter,