[95]
Again the Arab watchers cried:
"Charge, fierce Arabs!
For departed is the terrible knight
That rideth on the great piebald steed."
Forthwithal the Arabs hurled forward,
And sixty thousand warriors assailed the Sultan.
Again the Sultan wrote a letter to Marko:140
"Come quickly, my son Marko!
Sixty thousand warriors assail me!"
But Marko made answer to the Sultan:
"Wait yet a little, my father, the Sultan,
Not yet have I enough feasted
With my fellowship of kums and friends."
And at the dayspring of the third morn,
Again the Arab watchers cried:
"Charge, fierce Arabs!
Departed is the terrible knight 150
That rideth on the great piebald steed."
Forthwithal the Arabs hurled forward,
And an hundred thousand warriors assailed the Sultan.
Right so the Sultan sent to Marko a letter:
"See that thou come quickly, son Marko!
See that thou come quickly, Marko, my son-in-God.
The Arabs have overthrown my tent."
Then Marko mounted him on Sharatz,
And went and joined him to the Sultan's host.
In the morning when the white day dawned,160
The Arab watchers espied him,
And they cried from out their white throats:
"Give back now, fierce Arabs!
Behold he cometh, the terrible knight
On the great piebald steed!"
Then Marko smote down among the Arabs,
And brake their host in three parts.
The first he hewed in pieces with the sword,
The second he trampled under foot of Sharatz,
And the third part he drave before the Sultan.170
