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If thou canst tell as much without my assistance, I will yield the boundary-line; for it will show thee to have a calculation equal to my own, as well as riches." Al Kahlminar pondered long, suffered manifold headaches, closed not an eyelid for a week, but could not give answer. The Mystic was used to seeing only those things to see which the eyes must be closed.
But about the boundary-line atwixt them they could not agree: Schatrenschar maintaining that he had lived there longest, and had a right to choose where the wall should be built between himself and a later comer; Al Kahlminar declaring that the world was not made for Schatrenschar, furthermore, that the Astronomer had paid nothing for the land, and had already more than he could attend to, since his chief devotion was manifestly to the estates he was reputed to own in Venus and the moon.
"Nay," replied the Astronomer, discerning some truth in that remark, "but I am not alone, Al Kahlminar; I have within my palace two valiant knights, skilled with the steed and the spear, who are ready to go forth in my stead at a word." "And I," answered the Mystic, warming, "have two godly priests, men skilled by the orthodox beheading of heretics into the aim and valor of Arjoon himself.
"If thou shouldst bring forth thy priests, Al Kahlminar, then would I confront them and thee with the two elephants which my brother sent me lately from Geestan, on each of which I can place a rook with a slave cunning with the javelin, before which thy priests will flee; for the animals see no difference between priests and other mortals; the elephant is sagacious, neighbor!"
"Al Kahlminar, 'tis but by the grace of Yezdan, who hath commissioned me to watch the sacred stars, which reveal not themselves to the violent, that I am saved this day from flogging thee!" To this the Seer: "O Schatrenschar, thou must have left in some of thy other worlds, mayhap in Venus, the limbs which can cope with these."
"Hearken, Al Kahlminar; hast thou not heard it among the sayings of Sasan, that the battle is not always to him who hath the superior physical force? Suppose that in our encounter thy forces stood here, as marked on these squares: by what stratagem couldst thou reach me, who stand here with even fewer and weaker men?
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