Now in a little while, when all the troops
Were satiate of wealth, a sudden impulse
Came on Sikandar, and he greatly longed
To journey to the Kaaba. So at dawn
The drum-roll rose,*
the air grew like the eye
Of chanticleer, while all the mass of spears,
And silken pennons, formed a canopy
Of yellow, red, and violet.*
Sikandar
Nasr said: “O world-lord!
Khuzá' is master here. When Ismá'íl
Had passed away Kahtán, the monarch, came
With mighty hosts of swordsmen from the waste,
And seized the country of Yaman unjustly.
Of our race many guiltless folk were slain,
So that the day was over for our tribe.
Now this displeased the Maker of the world;
High Heaven frowned upon Kahtán: but when
He was reduced to dust Khuzá' appeared,
Unjust, audacious, and tyrannical;
All from Harám*
up to Yaman is his,
His angle is within the sea of Misr.
He hath transgressed from justice and the way,
And hath no thought of goodness in his heart,
The world is in his clutch, the hearts of all
The race of Ismá'íl are full.”
On hearing,
Sikandar slew such scions of Khuzá'
As he could find and scalped them, sparing none
Of friend or foe, delivering Hajáz,
And therewithal Yaman, from the oppressor
By policy and by his warrior-swordsmen,