Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/136

Bedawi suddenly drew a dagger from his girdle, drove it up to the hilt between the shoulders of the stooping Christian, who fell to the ground. The wife and three little sons of the murdered man beheld the deed. The sheykh then galloped off.

The Christian woman thus suddenly widowed ran to help her husband; to find him dead. She drew out the dagger, which had been left in the wound, and there and then made her children swear upon it, that if Allah spared them to grow to manhood they would punish the assassin with his own weapon.

As soon as the murdered man had been buried, his widow packed up her belongings and, accompanied by one or two Christian neighbours whom her late husband had dissuaded from migrating west of the Jordan, went to live at Nazareth, where she had relatives.

Years passed. The three little boys had become men when, one day, their mother told them that it was the anniversary of their father’s death, recalled to them once more every circumstance of the murder and, placing the dagger in the hands of the first-born, bade all three go and avenge their father’s death, as they had sworn to do beside his lifeless body.

That night, fully armed and well-mounted, they rode noiselessly away, having taken the precaution of tying several folds of “lubbâd,” or thick felt, round their horses’ hoofs. Travelling by out-of-the-way routes during the hours of darkness, and hiding, when daylight approached, in some cavern, it took them three days to reach the neighbourhood of the