Kahled's words were always few and quickly spoken.
"Son of the Terror of the Desert," said he, "many conflicting rumors reach me concerning the approaching enemy. I want the truth. I want it quickly. What dost thou require to aid thee in performing this duty?"
Kanana's forehead still touched the ground. Overwhelmed by this sudden order, an attempt to obey which meant death, without mercy, without one chance in a hundred of escape, he altogether forgot to rise.
Kahled sat in silence, understanding human nature too well to disturb the boy, and for five minutes neither moved. Then Kanana rose slowly and his voice trembled a little as he replied, "My father, I would have thy fleetest horse, thy blessing, and thy girdle."
Kahled the Invincible wore a girdle that was known to every soldier and camp-follower of the army. It was of camel's-skin, soft-tanned and colored with a brilliant Persian dye, which as far away as it could be seen at all, no one could mistake.
It was part of a magnificent curtain which once hung in the royal palace of Babylon. It pleased the fancy of the fierce warrior, and he wore it as a girdle till it became his only insignia. There was not a color like it within hundreds of miles at least, and when the people saw it they knew that it was Kahled.
"Take what horse thou wilt," replied the general. "I give thee, now, my blessing." Then he hesitated for a moment. Had Kanana asked a hundred camels or a thousand horsemen he would have added, "Take them." As it was, he said, a little doubtfully, "What wouldst thou with my girdle?"
In all the direct simplicity which clung to him in spite of everything, Kanana replied: "I would hide it under my coat; I would that it be proclaimed throughout the army that some one has fled to the enemy with the sacred girdle, and that a great reward be offered to him who shall return to Kahled any fragment of it he may find."
Without another word, the general unwound the sacred girdle, and Kanana, reverently touching it to his forehead, bound it about him under his sheepskin coat.
Kneeling, he received the blessing, and leaving the tent, he selected the best of Kahled's horses and disappeared in the darkness, alone.