The flame-gatherers

by Margaret Horton Potter

Fidá was deeply troubled. He gazed at Ragunáth, who, forgetting himself, was leaning over the tray, his eyes fixed—was it hungrily?—upon that gleaming stone. There was an eagerness in the clear-cut face that was too easy to read; and as he watched, Fidá saw the man’s hands fairly tremble for the gem. Rai-Khizar-Pál was wholly different. His face, as he examined the stone, expressed pleasure; but there was not a hint of avarice in his large, quiet eyes. After three or four minutes of hesitation and inward struggle on the part of Fidá, the King exclaimed:

“Thy tale, Fidá! Or wouldst really lose the jewel to me?”

“The jewel,” cut in Ragunáth, in a smooth, quiet voice, “belongs by right of war to the Rajah. No slave should possess such a fortune as this.”

“Ah, good counsellor, there thou’rt wrong. This Mohammedan is not a Sudra. Moreover, he does not carry the ruby as riches, but for a reason that we wait to hear. Come, Fidá, speak!”

The King laid the ruby on the tray before him, and began to eat, slowly. At the same time Fidá, overpressed, entered upon his tale; and during the whole of the recital his eyes never once rested on the jewel, but were fixed unwinkingly on Ragunáth’s æsthetic profile.

“O conqueror, the story of this jewel that you bid me tell is stranger than you think. ’Tis such a story as is scarcely to be found outside of fairy lore. And yet I stand here to prove that it is true.

“Know that my race, the Asra, are an ancient and powerful family, that have dwelt for many centuries in Yemen, the holy land. We are of high descent, and among us, at the time of the Hejira, was a follower of Mohammad, afterward one of the writers of the Koran, a venerable and a holy man, accounted a sage: by name, Hussen el-Asra. At the same time there lived in Mecca the high and holy Osman, compiler of the Koran, worshipped throughout the city as a saint. Now Hussen had a son, a young man of great beauty of face and form, and of highly virtuous mind, called Abdullah. One day this young man, by an unhappy accident, chanced to see a maiden, the daughter of a wealthy nobleman of Mecca, Said ibn-Alnas; and in the first sight of her he loved the maiden, and, going to her father, asked her hand in marriage. Said received Abdullah in the most courteous manner, but was distressed by the object of his visit, in that his daughter had already a suitor in old Osman, who, though four times married to virtuous women, had become so enamored of the beautiful Zenora that he purposed divorcing himself of one of his wives in order to marry her. Abdullah, however, was unmarried; and the venerable Said preferred to make his child the first wife of an honorable man, to bringing dishonor on the head of another woman by marrying her to Osman. Zenora, likewise, when the matter was laid before her, as is our custom with our women, begged earnestly to become the wife of the younger man, whom she already loved. Thereupon, before Osman was made aware of the matter, Zenora and Abdullah were safely married, and she had taken up her abode in the house of her husband and her husband’s father.

“When news of this wedding was brought to the saint Osman, he fell into a violent rage of despair. Praying to the Prophet for vengeance, the Prophet listened to his prayer, and put into his mouth a curse. And so Osman went into the market-place and waited; and when Abdullah came thither, Osman went up to him and cursed him and his love, and the loves of his children and his children’s children, that whosoever of his race should truly love a woman should die of it, having by her no more than one son. And though an Asra should, in his heart, cherish love for a woman and not marry her, the curse should yet be upon him, till in a short time their whole race should perish from the face of the earth.”

“It was an unholy curse,” observed the Rajah, deeply interested. And Fidá rejoined:

“So thought all that heard it; and no man looked for it to come to pass. Yet it happened that Abdullah and Zenora had not been wedded a month when the husband sickened. Though he grew constantly worse, he but clung the more to his wife, and she to him, until it seemed that he must surely die. Then, in her bitterness and grief, Zenora called upon her father and her husband’s father for aid; and the nobleman and the learned and holy one took counsel together, and prayed to Allah and the Archangels. And their prayer was answered. A voice from heaven addressed them, bidding Said bring forth the richest treasure of his house, and then Hussen to bless it and then take it to Abdullah for a charm against the evil of the curse; and, while he carried it, it would give him health and bring him children. So Said went and got this ruby, which was renowned throughout Yemen for its size and perfection. And Hussen, performing his part of the task, blessed the gem and consecrated it to Allah, and took it to his son, who by it was miraculously restored to health. Abdullah and Zenora lived happily, and had many daughters, but only one son, to whom the ruby was given at his father’s death, with the word that it should descend in time to his first-born, and so on down. In time it was found that only those children born of deep and lasting love were subject to the curse; but upon these, since the time of Abdullah and Osman, the evil has never failed to take effect when the ruby is not worn as a protective charm. It was my father’s, and given me by him according to the custom; wherefore my uncle, though he married and has a son, has devoted his life to pursuits of war and hunting, knowing that the gentler pleasures of life are not for him.”