A silence as of death itself fell upon the company. No one spoke. The boy remained standing with his hands out as he had spoken. At a motion from Ben Isah a servant stole to Ben Emeal's side and noiselessly placed a cup in his hands. The latter arose and stepped towards his son.
With a stern, tense voice Ben Emeal broke the silence: "The infidel must die! This is the cup of death. Drink!"
As he touched the cup to his son's lips a thunder as of mighty waters rose.
"Night is coming! The wildness of desolation is upon us! Fly, fly!" shrieked the voice of the old Arab. But even as he cried a wave of water burst into the room through the open door.
The river rose sixty feet above the bridge they say and at least ten thousand of the inhabitants of Hyderabad were drowned in that one day.
In one room in the house that had been Ben Emeal's, when the water subsided, they found as many as fifteen or twenty bodies and since most of them wore the Mohammedan rosary, all were given decent burial according to the customs of the followers of the Prophet. Thus an infidel was interred in holy ground and allowed to sleep beside his father.
IN OTHER LANDS
Poland, the Knight Among Nations