Nesìb the Thief was left before the house of the physician. Unable to run or help himself because of his injured legs, he must have been knocked down and trampled in that panic rush, but for the tender care of Ali, who fought manfully to protect him. But the Thief himself was blind to the danger escaped, blind to everything except his own cruel shame in dishonor. He kept sobbing convulsively, breaking out at intervals into a fit of wild lamentation, which pierced to the very entrails of Ali, who loved him as his soul.
For fear lest troops should come and surprise them, alone and unprotected, on the scene of riot, Ali helped his suffering love to shelter in an archway farther up the alley, and there ensconced him in the seat of the sherbet seller, behind the stall of cooling drinks. Removing a lemon which served as stopper to one of the large bottles upon the board, he poured out drink for his more than brother into a cup that was there, in the hope to soothe him.
Nesìb took the cup, duteously; but, when he would have sipped thereof, the tide of grief overcame him, and he turned his face to the wall. The cup would have fallen had not Ali caught it. The heartbroken voice of the beloved cut his bones.
“O Allah, kill me. Have I not reached the nadir of infamy? Are not my legs broken, both of them? Was not my hand bit in two of a fat one? Did not earth open and swallow me? Fell not the lot on me that I should lose my horse? O Lord, have I not borne enough already; but must the honor of my house be defiled by infidels, breakers of faith, ravishers, murderers? And now I have lost the knife I can never replace—to no purpose, for it struck him not. O Allah, avenge me quickly, or I die. Ah, woe! woe! woe!”
Ali knelt beside the weeper. He took Nesìb’s head upon his breast. Tender as a mother with her sucking babe, he wiped the slaver from mustache and beard; straightened the turban, smoothed the puckered brow; weeping, he also, and saying:
“O the sin of them. May Allah destroy those wicked ones who have brought such grief upon my dear. But say not ‘I am helpless,’ while thou hast a brother. Is not Ali whole? Are Ali’s two legs broken? Is not all that pertains to Ali thine always to command, employ? Has not Ali a knife, own brother to that thou didst throw? See, here; take, examine it; it is thine!”
Nesìb’s limp fingers closed upon the knife, and in gazing down at it his face straightened. He seemed attracted by its flashing brilliance. But presently, when Ali thought him comforted, his face knit once more to weeping, and, with a moan, “I cannot stab with it, but only throw it at a venture,” he pushed it from him.
“O Allah, look on him. O Lord, punish the miscreants who have made him thus,” cried Ali, beside himself.
He caught up the knife and held it close under the eyes of Nesìb, who had turned his face to the sunlight, but saw nothing through the rain of grief.
“See, I hold this knife—I, Ali, thy sworn brother. The knife is thine, I am thy right arm. I abide here with thee; I watch the alley. Whichever comes, the black or his master, I slay with this knife, the knife of Nesìb; with this arm, the arm of Nesìb; in the name of Nesìb, under Allah. So shall thy wrongs be avenged. Art content, O my eyes?”