Tales of the Caliph

by H. N. Crellin

The military display as the Caliph and the king left the capital was most imposing. The army consisted of twenty thousand men, half of whom were infantry and half cavalry. There were also elephants and camels with stores, and a great multitude of camp-followers.

For five days they marched through Selim's dominions, and on the sixth day entered the territory of King Gorkol. The frontier was marked by a range of hills, and the passage of so large a force over these was a toilsome and tedious operation. The Caliph and king had each a large tent for his own use, and a small army of officers and attendants to wait on him.

On the night of the seventh day, after a very exhausting march over difficult ground, the army encamped in a spacious valley into which they had descended just as night was approaching.

Whether the enemy managed to get at them unobserved, being stealthy and knowing every feature of the country, or whether the sentinels, being weary, slept at their post, is uncertain, but suddenly before daybreak the great army was awakened by shouts and blows to find the foe was upon them. In the darkness and the excitement of the moment all was confusion. Different parties of the royal troops starting hurriedly to arms, wildly attacked each other. The strife being furious and hand-to-hand was terrific and deadly; and when daylight appeared the enemy, pressing boldly forward to the centre of the camp, overcame all the resistance of which the thinned and disorganized army was capable, and captured both the king and the Caliph.

The two princes were carried with every mark of indignity into the presence of the heathen monarch, who, insulting them with references to their defeat, demanded of them that they should abandon the Moslem faith and worship the idols of the gods of his people, who had, he said, given his troops the victory.

But the Caliph answered that although Allah, whose name be praised, had permitted them to be worsted in the confusion of a night attack, yet they still trusted in him, and they would never vary in the least degree from the glorious words of the Prophet: "Allah is God, and there is no God but Allah."

Hearing this, King Gorkol ordered them to be confined separately in two dungeons of his castle, there to remain until a great festival of the gods which was approaching should arrive, when he would sacrifice them both to the gods whom they had dared to despise. Locked in the gloomy vaults, and seeing no one but the jailer who once a day brought them the scanty and hard fare necessary to keep them alive till the day of vengeance should come, their position seemed altogether desperate and their fate assured.

But in the case of King Selim he had, unknown to his captors and concealed in the folds of his turban, a ruby of great size and of immense value. With this he hoped to be able to bribe his jailer and effect his escape. And in fact so well did he manage that before a week was passed he was travelling homewards in the disguise of a merchant, accompanied by the jailer, who dared not remain in his own country in possession of the ruby because, according to the custom prevailing in that kingdom, all precious stones must be surrendered to the king under penalty of death by torture. He therefore fled with Selim, disguised as his slave.

The king had made great efforts to induce the jailer to effect the release of the Caliph at the same time as himself, but as Haroun Alraschid was in charge of another jailer, it could not be managed. Selim was obliged therefore, to his great grief, to leave the Caliph to his fate; but he hurried back to his own dominions with the utmost speed, determined to at once return with another army to avenge the death of the Caliph, whose life he could not hope to arrive in time to save.

The Caliph, having about him neither jewels nor money, had no means of propitiating his jailer or abating the rigour and severity of the treatment to which he was subjected. Once a day only, early in the morning, the jailer appeared, and, without opening the great heavy door of the dungeon, he opened one panel only, and through that opening handed to his prisoner the two small loaves, or rather, flat cakes, and the flask of water which must supply his wants till the following morning.