But Zāl interposed, saying: “If Rustem retires from the contest his family will be enslaved—we shall be in bondage and affliction.” Then she told Rustem to mount Rakush and follow her. He obeyed, and she led him far away across a broad river, and on the other side she came to a low marsh filled with reeds, where the moonlight flashed on the white wings of the pelicans and the night bird sang his lowest notes to the pale and drooping lilies. Then from the stems that bloom on the banks of Īrān’s rivers she chose the Kazū[[260]] tree, and directed Rustem to take from it a straight shaft and form it into an arrow and shoot it into the eye of his enemy. “The arrow,” said she, “will make him blind, and I would that it were only so, for he who spills the blood of Isfendiyār will never again in life be free from calamity.” Then she escorted Rustem, who carried the charmed arrow, back to his tent, and caressing his face with her beak and soft feathers she spread her golden pinions and soared away into darkness.
THE FALL OF THE WARRIORS.
Isfendiyār was amazed to see Rustem bearing gallantly down upon him, clad in full armor, and riding the self-same steed that seemed wounded to the death the day before. “How is this?” he cried.
“But thy father Zāl is a sorcerer,
And he by charm and spell
Has cured all the wounds of the warrior,
And now he is safe and well.
For the wounds I gave could never be
Closed up except by sorcery.”
Rustem replied, “If a thousand arrows were shot at me they would fail to kill, and in the end thou wilt fall at my hands. Therefore come at once and be my guest, and I swear by the Zend-Avesta that I will go with thee, but unfettered, to thy father.”