ttle wretched children, groaning most piteously.
And Omar said, 'Peace unto thee, O woman! What dost thou here, alone
in the night and the cold?' And she answered, 'Lord, I am making this
water to boil, that my children may drink, who perish of hunger and
cold; but for the misery we have to bear Allah will surely one day ask
reckoning of Omar the Khalif.' And the Khalif, who was in disguise,
was much moved, and he said to her, 'But dost thou think, O woman, that
Omar can know of thy wretchedness, since he does not relieve it?' And
she answered, 'Wherefore then is Omar the Khalif, if he be unaware of
the misery of his people and of each one of his subjects?' Then the
Khalif was silent, and he said to Aslam Abou-Zeid, 'Let us go quickly
from hence.' And he hastened until he had reached the storehouse of
his kitchens, and he entered therein and drew forth a sack of flour
from the midst of the other sacks, and also a jar that was filled to
the brim with sheep-fat, and he said to Abou-Zeid, 'O Abou-Zeid, help
thou me to charge these on my back.' But Abou-Zeid refused, and he
cried, 'Suffer that I carry them on my back, O Commander of the
Faithful.' And Omar said calmly to him, 'Wilt thou also, O Abou-Zeid,
bear the weight of my sins on the day of resurrection?' And Abou-Zeid
was obliged to lay the jar filled with fat, and the sack of flour, on
the Khalif's back. And Omar hastened, thus laden, until he had once
again reached the poor woman; and he took of the flour, and he took of
the fat, and placed these in the cauldron, over the fire; and with his
own hands did he then get ready the food, and he quickened the fire
with his breath; and as he bent over, his beard being long, the smoke
from the wood forced its way through the beard of the Khalif. And at
last, when the food was prepared, Omar offered it unto the woman and
the two little children; and with his breath did he cool the food while
they ate their fill. Then he left them the sack of flour and the jar
of fat; and he went on his way, and said unto Aslam Abou-Zeid, 'O
Abou-Zeid, the light from this fire I have seen to-day has enlightened
me also.'"

27

And it is thus that, a little further on, there speaks to a very wise
king one of five pensive maidens whom this king is invited to purchase:
"Know thou, O king," she says, "that the most beautiful deed one can do
is the deed that is disinterested. And so do they tell us that in
Israel once were two brot