Is it true
that a gang has rifled a mosque?'
'Sire! of that I would speak. They are no plunderers, but men, perhaps
too zealous, who have read and who have remembered that "Ye shall
utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall
possess, served their gods upon the high mountains, and upon the
hill, and under every green tree. And ye shall overthrow their altars,
and----"'
'Jabaster, is this a synagogue? Come I to a council of valiant statesmen
or dreaming Rabbis? For a thousand years we have been quoting the laws
we dared not practise. Is it with such aid that we captured Nishapur and
crossed the Tigris? Valiant, wise Jabaster, thou art worthy of better
things, and capable of all. I entreat thee, urge such matters for the
last time. Are these fellows in custody?'
'They were in custody. I have freed them.'
'Freed them! Hang them! Hang them in the most public grove. Is this the
way to make the Moslem a duteous subject? Jabaster! Israel honours
thee; and I, its chief, know that one more true, more valiant, or more
learned, crowds not around our standard; but I see, the caverns of the
Caucasus are not a school for empire.'
'Sire, I had humbly deemed the school for empire was the law of Moses.
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