The Amir looked at the form of Donald. The Highlander was pale, but his sinister face showed no hint of weakness in that wild spirit, his cold eyes gleamed unquenched.
--he road to Cathay is clear,--said Donald, speaking with difficulty.--rdushar lies in smoking ruins. I have carried out your last command.-- Timour nodded, his eyes seeming to gaze through and beyond the Highlander. What was a dying man on a litter to the Amir, who had seen so many die? His mind was on the road to Cathay and the purple kingdoms beyond. The javelin had shattered at last, but its final cast had opened the imperial path. Timour-- dark eyes burned with strange depths and leaping shadows, as the old fire stole through his blood. Conquest! Outside the winds howled, as if trumpeting the roar of nakars, the clash of cymbals, the deep-throated chant of victory.
--end Zuleika to me,--the dying man muttered. Timour did not reply; he scarcely heard, sitting lost in thunderous visions. He had already forgotten Zuleika and her fate. What was one death in the awesome and terrible scheme of empire.
--uleika, where is Zuleika?--the Gael repeated, moving restlessly on his litter. Timour shook himself slightly and lifted his head, remembering.
-- had her put to death,--he answered quietly.--t was necessary.----ecessary!--Donald strove to rear upright, his eyes terrible, but fell back, gagging, and spat out a mouthful of crimson.--ou bloody dog, she was mine!----ours or another--,--Timour rejoined absently, his mind far away.--hat is a woman in the plan of imperial destinies?-- For answer Donald plucked a pistol from among his robes and fired point-blank. Timour started and swayed on his throne, and the courtiers cried out, paralyzed with horror. Through the drifting smoke they saw that Donald lay dead on the litter, his thin lips frozen in a grim smile. Timour sat crumpled on his throne, one hand gripping his breast; through those fingers blood oozed darkly. With his free hand he waved back his nobles.
--nough; it is finished. To every man comes the end of the road. Let Pir Muhammad reign in my stead, and let him strengthen the lines of the empire I have reared with my hands.-- A rack of agony twisted his features.--llah, that this should be the end of empire!--It was a fierce cry of anguish from his inmost soul.--hat I, who have trodden upon kingdoms and humbled sultans, come to my doom because of a cringing trull and a Caphar renegade!--His helpless chiefs saw his mighty hands clench like iron as he held death at bay by the sheer power of his unconquered will. The fatalism of his accepted creed had never found resting-place in his instinctively pagan soul; he was a fighter to the red end.
--et not my people know that Timour died by the hand of a Caphar,--he spoke with growing difficulty.--et not the chronicles of the ages blazon the name of a wolf that slew an emperor. Ah God, that a bit of dust and metal can dash the Conqueror of the World into the dark! Write, scribe, that this day, by the hand of no man, but by the will of Allah, died Timour, Servant of God.-- The chiefs stood about in dazed silence, while the pallid scribe took up parchment and wrote with a shaking hand. Timour-- somber eyes were fixed on Donald-- still features that seemed to give back his stare, as the dead on the litter faced the dying on the throne. And before the scratching of the quill had ceased, Timour-- lion head had sunk upon his mighty chest. And without the wind howled a dirge, drifting the snow higher and higher about the walls of Otrar, even as the sands of oblivion drifted already about the crumbling empire of Timour, the Last Conqueror, Lord of the World.
Timur-Lang
The warm wind blows through the waving grain--Where are the glories of Tamerlane?
The nations stood up, ripe and tall--He was the sickle that reaped them all.
But the sickle shatters and leaves no trace--And the grain grows green on the desert-- face.
A Song of the Naked Lands
You lolled in gardens where breezes fanned
The blossom-- shivering shard;
But we were bred in a naked land
Where life was bitter hard.
You raped the grapes of their purple soul
For your wine cups brimming high;
We stooped to the dregs of the muddy hole
That was bitter with alkali.
And you grew flabby and round of limb,
Short of nerve and breath;
But we grew rugged and lean and grim
In our naked grip with Death.
Silk was too harsh for your dainty skin,
Red wine too poor for your drought;
We hunted the holes that the rain stood in,
And stripped the wolf for our clout.
Round were your bellies, soft your hand,
Soft with the fat of earth;
Yours was the wealth of a smiling land,
Ours the desert-- dearth.
You sang beneath the locust tree,
Forgetful of hunger and hate:
--t has always been, it will always be!---- Even then we were at your gate.
You lolled by fountain and golden hall
Until that frenzied morn
When we burst the gates and breached the wall
And cut you down like corn.
We reaped the yield and we plowed the field
With red and dripping shares,
And you could not fight and you could not run,
You could only die like hares.
Grim was the barter, red the trade,
With dripping swords for coins,
And your women screamed in the trampled sand
With bruised and bleeding loins.
Skilled was the brain and skilled the hand
That shaped the stubborn stone,
But the brain spilled on the bloody sand
When iron split the bone.
The hand that traced the gilded frieze,
That scrolled the written page,
It could not turn the driven steel,
Backed by the primal rage.
Of what avail the harp and lute,
Gemmed girdle and purple cloak,
When the dripping axe was smiting home
In the flame and the blinding smoke?
Blood smeared your satin and silk and lace.
You heard your children moan,
And your elders howled in the market place
Where we stripped them skin from bone.
And where your bearded judges sat
And bade men live or die,
A naked slayer roared and waved
A bloody scalp on high.
Over the ruins arched and spired
The billowing smoke cloud waves;
And you who lived when the sword was tired,
You live but as our slaves.
Our hard hands clutch your golden cups,
Our rough feet crush your flowers;
We stable our horses in your halls,
And all your wealth is ours.
We have doffed our wolfskin clouts for silks,
We wear them clumsily,
Our eyes are bleak, our beards unshorn,
Our matted locks stream free.
But our sons will trim their beards and hair,
Don cloaks of crimson hue;
They will take your daughters to their beds,
Till they grow soft as you.
They will trade their freedom for harps and lutes,
Discard the bow and the dart;
They will build a prison of satin and gold,
And call it Culture and Art.
They will lie in the lap of a smiling land,
Till its rusts unman and rot them,
And they scorn their blood, and the calloused hand,
And the fathers who begot them.
But our brothers still dwell in the sun-seared waste
And their sons are hard and lank;
They will hunt the wolf-pack that we chased,
And drink the water we drank.
The hungers we knew they too will know,
The scars of fangs and of briars;
In the rocks where they crouch when the sandstorms blow
They will find the marks of our fires.