These words should come
from none but a doughty champion: what wantest thou of equity?
"If thou wilt have me be thy captive, to serve thee," said
Kanmakan, "throw down thine arms and put off thine upper clothes
and wrestle with me; and whichever of us throws the other shall
have his will of him and make him his servant." The other laughed
and said, "I think thy much talk denotes the nearness of thy
death." Then he threw down his sword and tucking up his skirt,
drew near unto Kanmakan, and they gripped each other. But the
Bedouin found that Kanmakan had the better of him and outweighed
him, as the quintal outweighs the dinar; and he looked at his
legs and saw that they were as firmly planted as two well-builded
minarets or two tent-poles driven into the ground or two
immovable mountains. So he knew that he himself was not able to
cope with him and repented of having come to wrestle with him,
saying in himself, "Would I had fallen on him with my weapons!"
Then Kanmakan took hold of him and mastering him shook him, till
he thought his guts would burst in his belly and roared out,
"Hold thy hand, O boy!" He heeded him not, but shook him again,
and lifting him from the ground, made with him towards the
stream, that he might throw him therein: whereupon the Bedouin
cried out, saying, "O valiant man, what wilt thou do with me?"
Quoth Kanmakan, "I mean to throw thee into this stream: it will
carry thee to the Tigris.
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