‘Tell thy name, for I would know it;
And thy home, thy sire, and kindred.’
“And the slave replied:
‘My name is Mahomet. I come from Yemen,
And my race is the race of Asra,
Who must die if love they cherish!’”
—Heinrich Heine, “The Asra.”
THE FLAME-GATHERERS
CHAPTER I
THE CONQUEROR
The sun was setting over the Narmáda plain. In the midst of long stretches of sunburnt farm land the waters of the great river rolled and flashed with light. The barren millet-fields were illumined with long streaks of yellow sunshine that ran to the base of Mandu, an immense plateau, rising sheer from the lowlands to a height of some three or four hundred feet. Between it and the nearest of the Vindhyas is a deep chasm, a quarter of a mile or more in width, bridged over by a miracle of man, a stone causeway, many centuries old even on the day of September 6, in the year of the Christian Lord 1205, and of the Hejira 601.