SALADIN.
Go on.
SITTAH.
Check!—
SALADIN.
And check-mate?
SITTAH.
Hold! not yet.
You may advance the knight, and ward the danger,
Or as you will—it is all one.
SALADIN.
It is so.
You are the winner, and Al-Hafi pays.
Let him be called. Sittah, you was not wrong;
I seem to recollect I was unmindful—
A little absent. One isn’t always willing
To dwell upon some shapeless bits of wood
Coupled with no idea. Yet the Imam,
When I play with him, bends with such abstraction—
The loser seeks excuses. Sittah, ’twas not
The shapeless men, and the unmeaning squares,
That made me heedless—your dexterity,
Your calm sharp eye.