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One of the General's children, the second boy, died, and two of the Ayas, or black female servants, had the same fate. The hearts of the father and mother would have been broken for the child they had lost, had not their grief been suspended by anxiety for the fate of those who lived, and who were confessed to be in imminent danger.
As this is a chapter on shooting, I will as briefly as possible state what we did in the official way. In the first place we anchored at the head of the Gulf of Ayas, near a large town where resided the chief authority of the neighbourhood in which the murder had been committed.
"O Hadifah," exclaimed Ayas, "I am going to tell you what will be the result of all your obstinacy towards Cais." Then he recited some verses, with the following meaning: "In thee, O Hadifah, there is no beauty; and in the purity of Cais there is not a single blot. How sincere and honest was his counsels, although they were lacking in prudence and dignity.
Next arrived the archer Ayas, who, turning his back to the lake at the point where the horses were to start, drew his bow as he walked toward the north a hundred times, and measured out to the goal the course of a hundred bow-shots.
The contract of the bet was deposited in the hands of a man named Sabic, son of Wahhab, and in the presence of a crowd of youths and old men. "What shall be the length of the race?" asked Hadifah of Cais. "One hundred bow-shots," replied Cais, "and we have an archer here, Ayas, the son of Mansour, who will measure the ground."
Four days later the Grand Vezīr Ayās, with twenty-five thousand more and a brilliant staff, joined the first-comers, and the Akinji or light troops spread fire and sword around. A fifty-pounder fired nineteen shots in three days, but only five struck the fortress: the Turks fired too high, and many of their missiles fell harmlessly into the sea beyond.
They proceeded by the way of Ayas and Sivas to Mardin, Mosul, and Bagdad to Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
Then he shipped for Ayas, where he took the mule from the inn and, returning to Baghdad met Pestilence Hasan and his followers, to whom said he, "Hath the Caliph asked after me?"; and he replied, "No, nor hast thou come to his thought."
'Because, answered he, 'I am the patrol of this valley. So they gave him each a hundred dinars, after which he slew them and took their mules, one of which he mounted, whilst Alaeddin bestrode the other. Next morning, Alaeddin sold his own mule and committed that of Ahmed to the charge of the doorkeeper of the inn, after which they took ship from the port of Ayas and sailed to Alexandria.
Hares are not very numerous; to get three or four in a day is counted good luck; but one generally picks up one or two during a day's shooting. The coast of Karamania, taking in all the coast from some distance below Smyrna, passing Rhodes and so on to the Gulf of Ayas, affords all the way along capital sport to yachting men.
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