They stopped for the night in a village at the foot of a small cliff, on whose crest were the ruined walls of a castle. Karim walked up to see it.
The wall, of cobble stone, had once been about twelve feet high and went around that part of the crest not protected by the cliff. Within were the tumbled walls of houses, and three large cracked cisterns, meant to catch rain water. On the farther side was the arched opening to an underground passage, whose round top here and there had been uncovered by the rains, so that he traced it stretching down the brown hillside to a spot below covered with green grass. Near him, in the wall, was a gateway, protected by a tower of cut stone. Near this tower was a strange recess that seemed cut into the rock.
The village boys with Karim said that this was a holy place, because the prophet Ali had been there. He had been flying through the air when going home from a visit to a holy shrine, and had stopped to rest. As he leaned back against the rock he pushed it in and so made the recess. He was able to do such a wonderful thing because he was a very holy man.
That evening Karim heard the story of the destruction of the castle. Here it is:
About fifty years before, the castle was the home of a Kurdish chief, or sheikh, who gave a great deal of trouble to the governor in the city. He robbed the villages and the caravans, and never paid taxes or gave any presents to the governor. The governor did not have enough soldiers to punish the sheikh, so at last the ruler of the province came with an army and besieged the castle. He placed guards on all sides, so that no one could go in or come out. He put a cannon on a large white stone on the hillside opposite, and fired at the castle. This troubled the sheikh very much, but still he did not surrender. So the Persians called the peasants who lived in the villages near by and asked them how the sheikh was able to get water to drink. Some peasants told about the secret passage down to water, but as it was carefully covered no one knew just where to find it. So the Persian ruler took a mule, and ordered that for several days it be given plenty of food, but no water to drink. In this way the mule became very thirsty. Then the ruler ordered his men to lead it slowly around the castle. When the mule had been led almost all the way around it suddenly stopped and began pawing the ground, because it smelled water. Here the Persians dug into the earth, and found the secret passage way.
Then the sheikh in the castle called his men together, with their wives and children, who were with them. He told them that there was no more hope, for they had no water, but that they must not fall alive into the hands of the cruel Persians. Still, he said, he would not ask them to kill their own wives and children. He would let these surrender if they wished to, but not a man must surrender. The women cried out that they would rather die than be taken prisoners. And so they rushed with their children to the cliff and threw themselves over it to death—all except one, whose clothes broke the fall. The men opened the castle gate, and, rushing out, fought fiercely until all had been killed by their foes.
CHAPTER XVI
RUMOURS OF WAR
The next day for three hours they climbed up a rocky valley, and then crossed a high ridge, from whose summit they saw a plain at the foot of snow capped mountains.