the messenger arrived at dawn, with terrible news.
the ajab immediately had the messenger hanged outside the city gates.
the ajab decided not to tell the barfrave the news.
he called for the champion and instructed him to have the janissaries in readiness to either flee the city or make one last effort to defend it.
the ajab then hastened to his own chambers and secured all his pelmars in a small sack .
his darbool, who had served him faithfully for sixty years, and knew many , though not all, of the ajab’s secrets, was asleep on the floor.
the ajab strangled the darbool.
when he reached the courtyard, the remaining janissaries had been drawn up in serried ranks.
the ajab had made up his mind to flee.
suddenly the barfrave appeared, looking very distraught.
what is this, ajab? the barfrave cried. are ten thousand years of glory to vanish in a puff of smoke?
of course not, your celestial majesty, the ajab replied. we shall fight to the death.
or to victory! the barfrave shouted.
of course, to victory, the ajab agreed.
meanwhile the steeds of the assembled janissaries were growing restless.
open the gates! cried the champion.
at that moment the sky darkened, and a comet flashed across it.
the gates were opened, and the janissaries rushed out of it and fled across the desert.
the barfrave sat on the ground and wept.
the ajab mounted a mule and rode out of the gate in a more deliberate fashion. his precious sack of pelmars was tied to the back of the mule.
the ajab had gone less than a mile when the horizon was filled with a dark moving cloud,
it was the army of the kamerati. thousands, tens of thousands strong.
which quickly advanced across the desert and reduced the city to rubble and killed everything in it.
a few of the jainssaries escaped with their lives, as the advancing army did not bother to pause to finish them off.
the ajab was not so fortunate.
a camp follower, a child of no more than ten years, recovered the ajab’s bag of pelmars, which he had spent half a century in accumulating.
the comet disappeared from the sky.
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