Page:Persian Literature (1900), vol. 1.djvu/131

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THE SHÁH NÁMEH
97

When the keeper of the forest saw the stranger and his horse, he went to Rustem, then asleep, and struck his staff violently on the ground, and having thus awakened the hero, he asked him, devil that he was, why he had allowed his horse to feed upon the green corn-field. Angry at these words, Rustem, without uttering a syllable, seized hold of the keeper by the ears, and wrung them off. The mutilated wretch, gathering up his severed ears, hurried away, covered with blood, to his master, Aúlád, and told him of the injury he had sustained from a man like a black demon, with a tiger-skin cuirass and an iron helmet; showing at the same time the bleeding witnesses of his sufferings. Upon being informed of this outrageous proceeding, Aúlád, burning with wrath, summoned together his fighting men, and hastened by the directions of the keeper to the place where Rustem had been found asleep. The champion received the angry lord of the land, fully prepared, on horseback, and heard him demand his name, that he might not slay a worthless antagonist, and why he had torn off the ears of his forest-keeper! Rustem replied that the very sound of his name would make him shudder with horror. Aúlád then ordered his troops to attack Rustem, and they rushed upon him with great fury; but their leader was presently killed by the master-hand, and great numbers were also scattered lifeless over the plain. The survivors running away, Rustem’s next object was to follow and secure, by his kamund, the person of Aúlád, and with admirable address and ingenuity, he succeeded in dismounting him and taking him alive. He then bound his hands, and said to him:

“If thou wilt speak the truth unmixed with lies,Unmixed with false prevaricating words,And faithfully point out to me the cavesOf the White Demon and his warrior chiefs—And where Káús is prisoned—thy rewardShall be the kingdom of Mázinderán;For I, myself, will place thee on that throne.But if thou play’st me false—thy worthless bloodShall answer for the foul deception.”               “Stay,Be not in wrath,” Aúlád at once replied—“Thy wish shall be fulfilled—and thou shalt knowWhere king Káús is prisoned—and, beside,Where the White Demon reigns. Between two darkAnd lofty mountains, in two hundred caves
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