“And now, O my brother, once more I beseech thee to forgive thy brother and the son of thy brother, who are both very sensible of meriting thy most just displeasure. And May Allah preserve thee always.”
This letter, when folded and sealed, was intrusted to the soldier servant of Abd-ur-Rahman, who was obliged to set out that day on his return to El Cûds.
In less than a month it was answered. A trooper from the garrison of Esh-Shâm, calling God and his horse to witness that he had ridden day and night without a halt, delivered the missive to Shems-ud-dìn as he sat in the entry of his house toward sunset. With the usual courtesies, it ran:
“I have received thy honored letter, and though I grieve much for the loss of a youth whom I had come to regard as my son (a thing I could never procure of my own body, though I have tried many women and begotten at divers times no less than sixteen daughters, if I count aright, so that I have come to hate girl children as a deception, and utterly fail to comprehend thy infatuation for that girl who died), yet I will not disguise from thee that the withdrawal of the young one has done me good in my position. It is but policy in the sovereign to look askance on the posterity of men of note; and that custom of the Turks is wise by which honors descend not from father to son. The eyes of many in high places regarded with disfavor my fondness for Abd-ur-Rahman; but now, an old man without a sequel, I arouse no hatred, only expectations. What am I, thus lonely, but a kind of eunuch, a natural and unenviable appanage of sovereignty.
“I rejoice to learn in what love and esteem thou art held by all who know thee. As for me, I am beset with fears and hostile ambitions. Never in my life have I inspired sincere affection, save only in thee, O my brother. By Allah, the image of your little town rises tempting now in my mind, though in the days I was condemned to sojourn there I deemed it Jehennûm. It is because of our love, O my brother, for the sake of our parting there at daybreak among the rocks, that the thought of it now allures me. I am old and thou art old, but if it is the will of Allah that I fall some day from use, as may well betide—should my life then be spared and exile satisfy the lust of my enemies—I shall choose for place of banishment thy little town beneath the hill of ruins, and count it bliss to end my days at peace in the house of my brother.”
When Shems-ud-dìn looked up from the writing, he was blind with crowded visions of a bygone day. Out of the evening calm he looked and saw the vanity of man’s endeavor, from least to greatest, upon the earth, and how it floats on God’s mercy as a boat on the mighty deep. And he cried from his soul:
“Allah is greatest!”
THE END