"They shall not do so long!"
Timur called Shacheddin before him, and had another letter written to the Sultan, taking care that every time his name was mentioned it should appear in a line with his in quite as large-sized letters, and not in different ink; whilst, in accordance with his usual custom, he signed his name at the top, not the bottom, of the page. The contents of the missive were not couched in angry terms, though they were written in a haughty manner.
"Do you not know that the greater portion of Asia is submissive to my sword and my laws? Do you not know that my army reaches from one sea to another, and that the world's rulers stand humbly at my doors imploring to be heard! What is your boast to me? A victory over the Christians? You have been victorious over them because the swords of the prophet—blessed be Allah!—were in your hands. But who will defend you against me? Your only protector is the Koran, whose commands I obey as you do. Be wise! Do not despise your opponent because he was once insignificant. When the locust grows up, and its wings become red, it attacks the very birds who wished to consume it before!"
Timur's envoys carried the message to Bajazet as quickly as Arab horses could gallop. In it he once more demanded that the captured towns of the Khan of Aidin should be restored to him in peace and quietness, and that his wife and children should be set at liberty, and he suggested that the joint armies of the Sultan and himself should afterwards start together and branch off in different directions, one east, the other west—one to destroy the Pagans, the other the Christians. Timur's messengers returned to his camp with Bajazet's reply, also as swiftly as Arab horses could gallop. Hardly had he opened the letter when Timur's face became flushed with anger. Bajazet's name was written in a different line to his, and was at least an inch larger, whilst Timur's name was similar in size to the rest of the lettering, and was in black ink! The name of the Sultan was in historic characters ornamented with gold. Nor were the contents of the letter couched in mild form. Timur saw here no flattering terms. He was not styled Gurgan, or Djeihangir, but "the Spoiler of Countries," "the Thief of the Desert," "the Worm," "the Crippled Man," &c.; and he had to read how his fame was disparaged, his guns ridiculed, his requests mocked at, and his threats ignored.
"What I have conquered belongs to me, quite as much as does my own country. Those whom I have captured are my slaves. If you want them, come for them! Come, and bring with you your million soldiers with their miserable arrows, who will be quickly scattered by my heroes as chaff before the wind! Come, and find me face to face! Come! If not, may you be thrice separated from your wife!"
CHAPTER IV
"May you be thrice separated from your wife if you do not appear before me!" Every Eastern chronicler notes these words with shuddering horror!
Ibu Shimah, Arabshah, Sherefeddin, and the Persian Khandemir all record them with the greatest loathing, and Christian historians, such as Phranzas and Chalcondylas, admit that a greater curse could not befall a Mussulman! "May you be thrice separated from your wife!"
He who loves, nay adores, and respects his faithful wife, the mother of his children, who is to him a queen of the world as well as the queen of his heart, and he who knows that in accordance with the Alkoran it is easy to be separated from a wife, but should remarriage be desired, she must live with another man first, and only when he has thrust her aside can she again marry her first husband—he it is who will understand what a frightful curse is this to a Mussulman!
"May you be thrice separated from your wife!"