Now in Arabia there was no archer more skilful than Rabyah, and he bent his bow against the pursuers; and with his first shaft he pierced the throat of a son of Sulaim, so that the horseman died upon his horse, and with his second he nailed the thigh of another to the ribs of his animal, and with a third he shattered the sword-arm of the strongest Sulaimite; and seeing that it was Rabyah, the men of Sulaim fled from his archery; and he drove them back yet farther, sending his arrows humming like Djinns behind them. And when he had thus kept them back a good while, he turned and rode after the women again.
Then the men of Sulaim rode furiously in pursuit of him, and shot arrows after him in vain. For though all the black horses strove until they were sweating like well-filled water-skins in the great heat, only Nubaishah's stallion could follow after Rabyah's gray mare; and the gray mare's skin remained dry.
And so soon as Rabyah—after having urged on the toiling camels of the women still faster—turned once more and laid an arrow across his bow, the drum-beat of pursuing hoofs broke up into a sound of scraping and of stumbling, while the men of Sulaim scattered and drew back in dismay. And many times Rabyah thus checked them. Only Nubaishah, the son of Habib, ever sat firm upon his black stallion and faced the humming shaft, and dexterously avoided it or turned it from him with marvelous surety of eye and trueness of hand.
So, fleeing and turning, halting and proceeding, pursuers and pursued ever drew nearer to the jagged teeth of the western hills; and in the black-toothed line of them appeared the bright gap of the Pass of Ghazal, ever widening and brightening as they rode. And now the great stones upon the way made long black shadows over the plain; for the sun was setting before them. So they rode into the edge of the shadow of the hills, and Rabyah turned to make a last stand, and the pounding of the pursuing hoofs became a shuffling once again as the band of Sulaim drew rein in a cloud of dust. But now in Rabyah's quiver there were no more shafts.
Then Oumm Saiyar cried out to him from afar off: 'Sword and spear, son! Sword and spear for the women of the Beni-Firaz! Give them sword and spear for thy mother's sake, for thine own Raytah, who waiteth in the tent.'
And again and again did Rabyah charge them with spear and sword, scattering them even as a hawk scattereth quails. Only Nubaishah, the son of Habib, fled not, but yielded way cunningly to let him pass, and always thereafter circled menacing about him, like a vulture sweeping close to the sand.
And it happened at last that as Rabyah bore down upon a man of Sulaim, Nubaishah suddenly circled by him rapidly as a whirling wind, and thrust with his lance as he whirled, and the lance-blade burst its way through Rabyah's shirt of Persian mail and into his entrails.
And Nubaishah laughed, and drew back the blade of his wet spear between his stallion's ears, and smelled the odor of the blood upon it, and shouted, 'Thou hast thy death-wound, O Rabyah!' For never had swarthy Nubaishah lifted his spear against a man to slay him and failed in his purpose—so keen his eye, so subtle his hand.
But Rabyah, seeking to deceive him for the women's sake, shouted back with all the deep power of his voice, 'Thou liest in thy throat, Nubaishah!'
And Nubaishah laughed again, and shook his head in scorn, and circled away among his men.
Then Rabyah rode after the women swiftly, sitting firm as a tower despite his pain; and even at the Pass of Ghazal he came up with his mother, as he had promised, and he said to her, 'O mother, give me to drink! I have received my death-wound.'
And Oumm Saiyar looked upon the wound—a ghastly wound, that gaped even as the mouth of a camel with divided lip.
But she was of the race of eagles, and she answered him, tearlessly, 'Nay, my son, for if I give thee to drink now thou diest, and we would then be taken and put to shame, and while even one drop of blood lives in thy veins, O son of mine, thy duty remains to stand in defence of the weakness of woman and the honor of thy people. Turn back, son of Mokaddem! Turn and smite them while thy strength lasts, and bear the thirst for thy mother's sake; yet suffer me first to bind up thy wound.'
And while she strove to bind it with her veil—for that was all she had to bind it with—Rabyah murmured to her, 'O mother, the sons of Firaz have indeed lost him they were wont to call their battle-hawk—their deep-diving hawk of battle—him they held precious unto them as fire-shining gold. They have lost their darling horseman, O mother!'
But Oumm Saiyar said to him, as she knotted tightly the long veil about his wound: 'Son, are we not of mighty Thalabah's stock, and Malik's breed, whose daily lot is bereavement? Well hath it been said that among us no man dieth in his tent! What is the record of our race but an outpouring of ghosts from the clash of battle, even as the spark-flood's perpetual gush from the grinding of swords? Yet thou knowest that blood of ours is never shed without vengeance; and when one of us falleth, straightway another riseth up to do the deeds of a man—to help the weak, to strive with them that are mighty for evil. Bear thou the thirst for thy people's sake; turn now, O son, and smite them stoutly while thy strength endures.'
And Rabyah turned back again, while the women fled; and once more he scattered the band of Sulaim, and drove them before him, and held all the Pass. And he sat guarding the narrow way, upon his gray mare.
Then fell and died the day, in awful passion of fire, behind the Pass, and against the mighty glow, as in a flame, the horseman towered like a Djinn.
And the sons of Sulaim drew afar off, and watched Rabyah—as vultures wait and watch, pluming themselves, about the place where a lion lieth down to die. And because they would not again attack Rabyah, Nubaishah mocked them with rhymes piercing as the iron of lances. But they could not be moved to approach him; and Nubaishah foamed at the mouth like a camel that hath eaten bitter herbs.... And the night came.
But Rabyah, remaining in the shadow of the Pass, felt that his ghost was about to depart from him. And bending to the ear of his slim gray mare, he whispered unto her, softly, 'Stand thou still, darling; stand still as a stone for the love of me!' Then he pressed the foot of his long spear into the ground, even as he sat upon her, and leaned upon it.
And in the darkness his ghost went out from him.
But ever, as a king sitteth upon his throne, so Rabyah sat upon his mare; and ever the gray mare stood still as a stone for the love of him.
Over the black desert of the sky slowly moved the long white caravan of the stars; and the night waned. But dead Rabyah still sat upon his mare; and the beautiful mare stood as a graven image standeth, for the love of him.
Until the cheek of the morning reddened, as for shame; and Nubaishah saw that Rabyah's head drooped, as though he slept upon his mare.
Then Nubaishah called unto him an archer of Khuzaah, a mighty man to bend the bow; and he asked the archer, 'Hast thou an arrow left, my son?'
And the man looked to where Rabyah was, and replied, fearfully, 'One only—and it is for my life.'
But Nubaishah said: 'Thy life is safe now. Shoot the arrow, my son; shoot at the gray mare.'
And the mare saw the arrow coming, and leaped aside; and Rabyah fell upon his face. Then, for the first time, all the men of Sulaim knew that he was dead; and they sent up a great shout.
And they went up to where he lay, and looked upon him, and wondered, and they spoiled him of his helm and his broken shirt of mail, and his lance and sword, and his sandals. But the mare had fled toward the tents of the Beni-Firaz, and none might overtake her.
And swart Nubaishah muttered: 'There was no other like him among the men of Firaz. I almost repent me to have slain him.'
And a wild man of Sulaim, marveling, smote the foot of his spear into the dead man's eye, and cried aloud, in the uncouthness of his admiration, 'God curse thee!-a man who defendeth his women even after he is dead!'
But Oumm Saiyar and the women had reached the tents of the Beni-Firaz, and aroused the tribe. And the best men of the camp sprung to horse in haste, and rode fiercely to the Pass of Ghazal; but they only found Rabyah lying there, naked and dead, and the vultures circling above him. And leaving him there, they pursued so furiously after the sons of Sulaim that the long way smoked beneath them; yet they could not overtake them.
So they rode back to where Rabyah lay, and they buried him there, with great mourning, in the place of his last and greatest deed. And they built above him a hill of black stones to mark the spot, and in the midst thereof, at the summit, they set up a great white stone, shaped like the back of a camel.
And never thereafter—until the days of the Prophet—did any Arab of any tribe pass that way who did not sacrifice a camel in honor of the valiant one who had defended his women even after he was dead. (Except, indeed, Hafs, son of Al-Ahnaf, who, having but one camel, could not make the sacrifice; but he composed an immortal poem in honor of Rabyah, and his verses are still in the mouths of the Arabian people.)
And never a son of Firaz passed that way to war who did not cry out unto Rabyah: 'La tab'adan!Abide with us! Be with us this day, O Rabyah!'
And after Islam, not less than in the Days of Ignorance, the wives of the desert horsemen prayed they might become mothers of brave tall boys worthy to bear Rabyah's name.
And whenever, in time of foray, or in days of ill fortune of war, or amid the ghastly perils of desert travel, women found themselves face to face with the fear of shame, they would cry out the name of him upon whom no woman had ever called vainly in those wild, dark days before Islam.
And Islam itself, spreading like a holy fire east and west, two hundred days' journey from India to the Sea of Darkness, bore abroad his name, and flashed it far into the black South, making it known unto the blue-eyed Touareg, whose camels dance to the sound of music—making it known even to those swart sultans whose domains do border upon the unknown lakes of Afrikia.
And these are some of the verses that were composed in that long rolling measure which is calledKamil, before the sepulchre of Rabyah, by the poet Hafs, the son of Al-Ahnaf:—
Bide with us still, Rabyah, son of Mokaddem, near!May the clouds of dawn keep green thy grave with unfailing showers....My camel fled when she spied the cairn on the stony waste,Built over one who was free of hand, most quick to give.Start not, O camel! for sure no shape to be shunned was he—A carouser mirthful, a mighty stirrer of battle-flame.Long is my way, and the thirsty desert before me lies,Else here for thee she had fallen, butchered to feast thy friends.[1]
Bide with us still, Rabyah, son of Mokaddem, near!
May the clouds of dawn keep green thy grave with unfailing showers....
My camel fled when she spied the cairn on the stony waste,
Built over one who was free of hand, most quick to give.
Start not, O camel! for sure no shape to be shunned was he—
A carouser mirthful, a mighty stirrer of battle-flame.
Long is my way, and the thirsty desert before me lies,
Else here for thee she had fallen, butchered to feast thy friends.[1]
[1]C. J. Lyall's version, as given in his admirableTranslations of Ancient Arabian Poetry(London: 1885).
[1]C. J. Lyall's version, as given in his admirableTranslations of Ancient Arabian Poetry(London: 1885).