Agha

“ Arab spearmen thrusting at the dying and the dead;
He had left the shrunken ranks to save a comrade in the rear;
And he raised himself and cursed them; and went down beneath a spear.
He lies and stares at Heaven through a cloud of crows and kites;
While round him prowl the jackals in the lurid tropic nights.
And he'll slowly bleach to powder 'neath the sunlight's livid scroll,
—The man they chased from Europe whom the world denied a soul. ”

“ O thou old warrior, let us yield to Heaven!
Come, plant we here in earth our angry spears,
And make a truce, and sit upon this sand,
And pledge each other in red wine, like friends,
And thou shalt talk to me of Rustum's deeds.
There are enough foes in the Persian host,
Whom I may meet, and strike, and feel no pang;
Champions enough Afrasiab has, whom thou
Mayst fight; fight them, when they confront thy spear!
But oh, let there be peace 'twixt thee and me! ”

“ Our foes abroad will be tormented more,
What shield can they or what refreshing find?
Heaven will them vanquish first, then Egypt’s crew
Destroy them quite, weak, weary, faint and few:
XV
“Thou shalt sit still and conquer; prove no more
The doubtful hazard of uncertain fight.
But if Argantes bold, that hates so sore
All cause of quiet peace, though just and right,
Provoke thee forth to battle, as before,
Find means to calm the rage of that fierce knight,
For shortly Heaven will send thee ease and peace,
And war and trouble mongst thy foes increase.” ”

“ Muscular arms that had thrust the galleys through the Mediterranean, dropped the sweeps and caught up weapons as the keels grounded. The sea curled about the legs of the invaders as they dropped over the prow and swarmed ashore. Fighters, every one, asking no quarter, giving none, seeking plunder with the sword, valuing other lives not at all and their own but little.
See the women shrinking into the corners of the palaces, eyes full of fear, sensing approaching doom; men shouting and gasping, the invaders sweeping forward and cutting them down. ”

“ Khumbaba on his mighty steed of war,
Above the ranks towers high a giant Sar,
And sweeps the men of Accad with his blade,
Till to his breast a heap of corpses made,
And fiercely urged his men to fight, to die;
And Izdubar, with helmet towering high,
His men has led with fury on the foe,
And massacres each man with one fell blow,
Who dares to stand in front with sword or spear,
And fighting by him stands his valiant seer.
The gods now rushing from the gleaming sky,
With blazing weapons carry victory;
The foe no longer stand before the sight,
And shouting fly away in wild affright. ”

“ Thou art unskilled in the ways of war, my father. The king who would conquer treats not with his enemy. Thou dost risk the respect of thy realm for thee. Strengthen thy fortifications and exhaust the cunning of thy besieger. And if he invade thy lines again with insolence and threats, treat him to the sword or the halter. If thou art a warrior, prove thy deserts to the name. And if Egypt backs thee not in thy stand against the Hebrew, then it is not the same Egypt that followed Rameses the Great to glory! ”

“ Many hundreds of bas-reliefs, which are more natural because less conventional than those of Egypt, illustrate the chase of the lion, stag, and jungle-swine; the wild horse, ass, and bull. They were equally skilled in the art of war, which is shown in all its phases, the march, the passage of streams, the siege, the battle, the sea-fight, or rather the river-fight, the pursuit, and the punishment of prisoners by torturing, impaling, flaying alive, crucifixion, and ‘tree-planting’ or vivi-interment. ”

“ Despise their battle line. Attack the Alani, smite the Visigoths! Seek swift victory in that spot where the battle rages. For when the sinews are cut the limbs soon relax, nor can a body stand when you have taken away the bones. Let your courage rise and your own fury burst forth! Now show your cunning, Huns, now your deeds of arms! Let the wounded exact in return the death of his foe; let the unwounded 206 revel in slaughter of the enemy. No spear shall harm those who are sure to live; and those who are sure to die Fate overtakes even in peace. ”

“ I will go up and will cover the earth: I will destroy the city, and its inhabitants.
9 Get ye up on horses, and glory in chariots, and let the valiant men come forth, the Ethiopians, and the Libyans that hold the shield, and the Lydians that take, and shoot arrows.
10 For this is the day of the Lord the God of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may revenge himself of his enemies: the sword shall devour, and shall be filled, and shall be drunk with their blood: for there is a sacrifice of the Lord God of hosts in the north country, by the river Euphrates. ”

“ No wonder the Arabs never charged that fort, from each of whose walls a rifle cracked continuously, and from whose every embrasure watched a fearless man whom they could not kill—or whose place seemed to be taken, at once, by another, if they did kill him. ”

“ As we learn from the prophets and now still more from herself, Assyria was the great Besieger of Men. It is siege, siege, siege, which Amos, Hosea and Isaiah tell their people they shall feel: siege and blockade, and that right round the land! It is siege, irresistible and full of cruelty, which Assyria records as her own glory. Miles of sculpture are covered with masses of troops marching upon some Syrian or Median fortress. Scaling ladders and enormous engines are pushed forward to the walls under cover of a shower of arrows. ”

“ Our brethren are sent to the shambles, we hear their cries, we see their banners falter and fall into the enemy's hands, and we are not suffered to fly to their assistance, though we stand here with drawn swords in our hands. There is treachery—treachery against Allah and His Prophet! Therefore, let every true believer forsake immediately his handiwork, cast his awl, his hammer, and his plane aside, and seize his sword instead; let him close his booth and rally beneath our standard! ”

“ Thy servants fought till they could fight no more,
For all were slain or captives made in fine:
The Arabian outlaws them assailed by night,
When least they feared, and least they looked for fight.
LXXXVIII
“Their frantic boldness doth presume so far,
That many Christians have they falsely slain,
And like a raging flood they spared are,
And overflow each country, field and plain;
Send therefore some strong troops of men of war,
To force them hence, and drive them home again,
And keep the ways between these tents of thine
And those broad seas, the seas of Palestine.” ”

“ Mountaineers from Hyrcania and Affghanistan, wild horsemen from the steppes of Khorassan, the black archers of Ethiopia, swordsmen from the banks of the Indus, the Oxus, the Euphrates, and the Nile, made ready against the enemies of the Great King. ”

“ Great battles are fought; great victories are won; the slain are counted; the captured drag their chains behind the victor’s chariot; the king triumphs, is crowned and sacrifices to the gods. Elsewhere more wars, more slaughter. There is revolt in Libya; there are raids on the Asiatic border; there are invaders coming in ships from the islands of the Great Sea. The royal standard is raised; troops assemble; arms are distributed. Again the king goes forth in his might, followed by the flower of Egyptian chivalry. ”

“ Though the enemy be many they shall turn their backs in flight before the weak man, and one shall take captive a thousand. Wet yourselves with the water of his altars, smell the earth before him, and say: O make a way for us! Let us fight under the shadow of thy sword, for a child, if he be but sent forth by thee, shall vanquish multitudes when he attacketh. ”

“ The noise of the whip, and of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots; the horseman cometh on, the bright sword and glittering spear." "Art thou better than No-Ammon (Thebes) that was situate by the Nile?" [544] "The destroyer is come up before thee, Nineveh; keep the munition, watch the way, gird thy loins, fortify thyself mightily. Draw thee water for the siege, fortify thy strongholds; go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln. Thy mighty men hasten to the walls, but they stumble in their walk. ”

“ Voyez donc! A French fort in the Sahara, besieged by Arabs. Every man killed at his post. The Arabs beaten off. The fort inviolate, untrodden by Arab foot. The gates closed. Within—the dead, and one of them slain by a French bayonet while he held a loaded revolver in his hand! ...
But was the fort inviolate and untrodden by Arab foot? If so, what had become of my trumpeter? Might not the Arabs be hiding below, waiting their opportunity to catch the relieving force unawares? Might not there be an Arab eye at every rifle-slit? Might not the caserne, rooms, offices, sheds, be packed with them? ”

“ So thinks each Pagan; each Arabian trows
He wields three swords, all in one hilt that stick;
His readiness their eyes so blinded hath,
Their dread that wonder bred, fear gave it faith.
LVI
The Afric tyrants and the negro kings
Fell down on heaps, drowned each in other’s blood,
Upon their people ran the knights he brings,
Pricked forward by their guide’s example good,
Killed were the Pagans, broke their bows and slings:
Some died, some fell; some yielded, none withstood:
A massacre was this, no fight; these put
Their foes to death, those hold their throats to cut. ”

“ Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans, which besiege you without the walls, and I will assemble them into the midst of this city.
5 And I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath.
6 And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall die of a great pestilence. ”

“ But with his curved blade of temper, which will not shiver and which takes a razor’s edge, the warrior of the East neither strikes nor gives point, but presents the half-moon-shaped sword at his opponent, holding it still if galloping, pushing it forward if motionless, and will so slice off limb or head, or cut deep into the body, without useless expenditure of strength, or the chance of losing even the momentary control of his weapon. I have seen an Arab meet an enemy in full career, and slice his head clean off in this way, with hardly a perceptible movement of the arm. ”

“ Throughout all the mountains of Israel, where he hoped to meet with spoil to enrich him, he shall meet with swords to destroy him, and, rather than fail, every man's sword shall be against his brother, as in the day of Midian, Ps. lxxxiii. 9. The great men of Syria shall undermine and overthrow one another, shall accuse one another, shall fight duels with one another. Note, God can, and often does, make the destroyers of his people to be their own destroyers and the destroyers of one another. ”

“ The Roman armies under Justinian, together with the Vandals and Huns, were desolating Africa; the barbarians of Scythia were pouring down upon the Roman empire; {228} the Persian armies were pillaging and laying waste the countries of Asia; the Arabians, under Mohammed, were beginning to extend their conquests over Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Barbary, and Spain. Every nation and kingdom on earth was shaking to its centre. The smoke and the spirits of the bottomless pit seemed coming up to darken, and torment, and affright mankind. ”

“ This barbarous custom applied to every soldier slain in honorable warfare, as fully as to the victim of the assassin’s dagger; and the wholesome dread of the consequences of a hard-fought conflict, where a score of lives might be exacted in return for every fallen enemy, usually rendered the encounters of the Arab comparatively bloodless. ”

“ There for nearly seven days they strive intensely, and at last they set themselves in battle array; and the nations of the north standing firm as a wall, and impenetrable as a zone of ice, utterly slay the Arabs with the edge of the sword. ”

“ Behold him now, attacking, storming,{105} carrying sword in hand every stronghold of the Turks; sometimes marching under the insufferable noon day sun, or in the darkness of a stormy night, to surprize and to overcome the enemy! see him pass with the velocity of a sweeping wind, from one extremity of the frontier to another, restoring wandering outcasts to their houses, rescuing children and women from dishonour and slavery, followed everywhere by rejoicing and benedictions! ”

“ The English and their Egyptian allies fight with admirable courage, and the dervishes strike with a bravery and contempt of death to which no words can do justice. Under the holy banner a detachment advances into the fire, wavers, is mown down, and falls, and almost before the smoke of the powder has cleared away, another presses forward on the track of the slain, only to meet the same fate and join their comrades in the happy hunting-grounds of eternity. ”

“ The celerity with which troops are raised is quite astonishing to us; who are accustomed to see recruits drilled for a length of time. Here, every man is born a soldier; every child has his knife,—that weapon which has proved so destructive in the hands of a hostile peasantry, incited against us by the moollahs, who threaten eternal perdition to all who do not join in the cause of the Ghazeeas; whilst heaven, filled with Houris, is the recompence for every man who falls in a religious war. ”

“ These fifty champions were, mongst whom there stands,
In silver field, the ensign of Christ’s death,
If I had mouths and tongues as Briareus hands,
If voice as iron tough, if iron breath,
What harm this troop wrought to the heathen bands,
What knights they slew, I could recount uneath
In vain the Turks resist, the Arabians fly;
If they fly, they are slain; if fight, they die.
XCIII
Fear, cruelty, grief, horror, sorrow, pain,
Run through the field, disguised in divers shapes,
Death might you see triumphant on the plain,
Drowning in blood him that from blows escapes. ”