Achmed Abdullah

“ Some were half mad with excitement, and every once in a while one of them would jump up with a throaty yell, swing into the open space in front of the pedestal with a whirling, gyrating motion, and dance before the jeering, black statue with horrible gestures—and over all the sullen, palsying din of the drums and cymbals and tomtoms—and the red, floating, swirling wreaths of incense smoke—until at last, through sheer, physical exhaustion of the worshipers, the ceremony came to an end. ”

“ Envy them? By the Prophet—let them envy him! And, as his brain conceived and formed the thought, all at once his sword point found a soft spot between the monster’s green, steely scales. The point entered, twisted, tore, cut, ripped; and with a great, wailing roar, the dragon fell on its side, breathed one final column of smoke and fire through its nostrils, and died.
“By the Prophet—on Him the salute!” the Thief of Bagdad said to himself, not at all modestly. “Pluck does it every time!” ”

“ Quickly he bent over the dead. With agile, practiced fingers he opened a vein and drained a generous quantity of blood into a sacerdotal bowl. He poured it out at the feet of the idol while the worshipers prayed and chanted, and while the Prince picked up the crystal eye which had remained unbroken in spite of the fall.
He held it high.
He looked into its milky whiteness. The greatest rarity in the world, he thought triumphantly, well worth the death of a thousand young Brahmins! The treasure by the strength of which Zobeid would be his! ”

“ There were vivid bits of life: a peasant tilling his small patch of soil; a maiden sitting in a garden and weaving brocade at the loom; a scholar in front of his house, pouring over a learned scroll; an old man bearing a great bundle of fire wood; a fisherman rocking in his skiff—and, hovering over all, the serenity of quiet, intense, never tiring labor which is the message and the blessing of the Chinese. ”

“ For he was about to cross the Valley of the Monsters, the Valley of Evil Thoughts, where all the envies and jealousies and bad wishes formed in the human brain since God created Adam out of clay mixed with water and Eve from a crooked rib of Adam’s body, lie in ambush for the traveler—unless there be no rancor in his soul and no envy nor malevolence in his heart. ”

“ He is a Jew! A Christian! Perhaps a Chinese! Or a woolly-haired, thin-shanked one from Africa! Deaf he is, and dumb! Why—even if I told him right now that, to get out of the Enchanted Garden, all he has to do is to pronounce three times the name of Allah and touch the little brown spot on my green trunk which conceals my heart with the second finger of his left hand—even then he would not understand—the fool—the idiot—the half-wit—the dunce—the dolt! Brothers and sisters!”—addressing the whole garden—“I am afraid that this Ahmed will have to stay here until he dies! ”

“ Ah—my Ahmed! Ah—my clever, clever Thief of Bagdad! let us see if your wisdom be as vast as ours and your wit as sharp as ours. Let us see if you will be able to solve the secret of the Enchanted Garden. How, my darling Ahmed, are you going to get out of here? ”

“ Ho, Kali! Ho, Devi! Ho, Doorga, Doorga, Doorga! Thou who holdest a sword in thy lotus-like hands—who art fearless—who art black as the clouds—whose form is terrible—who dwellest in burning ground ...
The voices dropped to a flat humming and purring. Then a wail of drums and cymbals, a shrill piping of reed-flutes in ear-splitting waves of sound—and once more the chanting rose loudly, while the swinging incense-burner poured out a thick cloud of cloying, dead-sweet smoke, like an impalpable cloud of dread superstitions—the soul of their ancient Hindu faith in scented, vapory form:
“... ”

“ Him the Prince of India commanded to climb the statue and remove the left eye from its stone socket.
“For,” he added, “your hand is as pure as your heart. Your touch will be gentle to Doorga.”
The youth trembled with fear.
“Heaven-Born,” he replied, “I am afraid.”
“Afraid? Of what, may I ask?”
“To remove the eye—oh—it would be a terrible affront to the goddess!”
“Is that all?” smiled the Prince carelessly. “Have no fear. Doorga is my cousin. I myself absolve you of all sin.” ”

“ The medicine-man stopped in front of a large building springing out of the scarped rock.
“We have arrived,” he said. “Here my ancestors, before they were drowned in the swill of these Chinese pigs, prayed to their gods and brewed their ancient craft. Here I, the last of my race, having inherited the craft of my ancestors, fashioned with my own hands and brain and soul the magic fruit which kills—and which grants life. No”—as the Mongol Prince was about to follow him across the threshold—“wait here. It is not safe inside.” ”

“ For it seemed to him that, as he walked, the garden was walking with him, each tree and flower and bush, each orchid-laden creeper and tiniest blade of grass moving with him in a parallel line so that, for all his steady walking, he really did not move an inch. ”

“ Even the Prince’s tough Mongol hide squirmed at the suggestion. “What for? What is a dead woman to me?”
Yuqluq smiled as he might at a babbling child.
“Have her poisoned slowly,” he continued, “so that by the time you reach Bagdad she will be at every door of death. Then you, with the help of this magic apple, will bring her back to life. And there will be no argument as to which of the three of the Princes has brought back the greatest rarity. Life itself? Is there a finer gift on earth?” ”

“ The foliage dropped away as did the bark; and, instead of a tree stood a very old man, with long green, hair, a long green beard, green eyes, green skin. His very toe nails were green, and green was his voice—if voice can be said to have a color—as he said to Ahmed:
“Fool you may he, but I am the greater fool. For you fooled me to the Sultan’s taste with your cursed silence. See”—he pointed at the Enchanted Garden and at an opening in its wall of trees beyond which was a sun-bathed clearing—“you have broken the spell. ”

“ The sort of fool who fasts for a whole year—and then breaks his fast with an onion!”
Still Ahmed kept as silent as the desert at noon, thinking to himself: “Expect good from the wicked; drain the swallow’s milk; pluck a hog’s wool; cause the sand to yield pomegranates; fix a pump in the middle of the sea; put a male elephant in the nest of a humming-bird—then make the silent talk!” ”

“ Years ago, when Bird-of-Evil had been the master thief and he a mere beginner, the other had taught him that in a tight corner silence was the sharpest weapon in the world, and that the listener has all the advantage over the talker. ”

“ It cannot restore life to those who have died by the sword, by wounds, or mutilations. But it does give life to those who have died of an ailment or of poison—any poison at all—or by the touch and scratch of the apple’s green point. Come!” laughed the medicine man. “Let us put this darling little apple to the test!”
They left the ruins and returned to the harbor where, at the water’s edge, a Chinese was fishing. ”

“ But, what with prayers and exorcisms and incantations, with the burning of secret incense and the mumbling of ancient spells and the beating of devil drums, they succeeded at last. The supernatural beings disappeared in a great, roaring, yellow wind; and the Prince and his retinue continued their journey until, finally, they reached the statue of Doorga, the goddess of destruction. ”

“ What can I do for you? All men have their price. What is yours? What do you want?”
“I want a wife,” came Yuqluq’s simple reply. “I want children—preferrably men-children. For I am the last of my race. With me—unless I have children—the Tunguz nation is finished.”
“Well—then—why don’t you marry?”
“There is no Tunguz woman left in all the world.”
“Marry a Chinese girl. Some of them are quite pretty—and all of them are obedient.”
The medicine-man’s eyes flashed with hate.
“These Chinese pigs look down on me,” he said. “They will not give me one of their women in marriage.” ”

“ Man hath thus received the happy gift of being enabled, with clear view and penetrating reflection, to contemplate the Wonders of Omnipotence and the mysteries of creation, and to know that the brocaded surface of Day, colored with brilliant and motley groupings, and the glorious curtain of Night, decorated with the light of the many stars, received not visible form without a wise Ordainer and a preventing Framer. ”

“ Then the medicine-man showed him that on one side of the apple was a tiny green point, like the point of a needle, and on the other side a similar point, but purple in color.
“The touch of the green point, when it scratches the skin with a quick, criss-cross motion, means death. The touch of the purple point, applied with the same motion, means life.” ”

“ At the end of the procession came the Prince himself. He was flanked at the left by a tall, mitred high-priest in white robes, and at the right by another ministrant, swinging a flat incense burner on silver chains. ”

“ By cutting out her eye he would bring Bagdad and all Arabistan under his sway—under the sway, thus, of India’s gods—of Doorga herself. Yes. Doorga would understand.
Only, before sending up a man to cut out the eye, he decided to propitiate the goddess with proper worship. ”

“ For the more the latter speaks, the more he becomes involved and tangled in his own web of words and the more anxious he grows to receive an answer, be it in agreement or in contradiction, from the other ”

“ Then, returning to consciousness, he declared that he had considered the matter of the Prince’s marriage, and quoted the Shastras, the Hindu Scripture, at length:
“‘She who is not descended from his paternal or maternal ancestors within the sixth degree is eligible by a man of high caste for nuptials. In taking a wife let him studiously avoid the following families, be they ever so high in caste, or ever so rich in grain and cattle and gold: the family which has neglected prescribed religious duties; that which has produced no male children; that which has thick hair on its body ”