"You cannot forget the wretched thing," said he, almost angrily. "Let the world go on its way. Do not seek to destroy all that is good in it. There are things which Allah has decreed shall be left alone; and if its history has been handed down to us truly, this golden circlet is one of them."
"Sheik," I said, "you are a great man, and chief of an important branch of a great tribe. Your men regard you with reverence and respect, and your position has doubtless given you a vast knowledge of men and of the affairs of the world. Yet you believe in superhuman and supernatural occurrences; or you think that you believe in them. You think that I am a magician, because I have been connected with certain events which had results different from what you expected. You believe in the mysterious powers of this Golden Girdle, because you have always heard wild stories about it."
As I concluded, I was astounded at my audacity in thus rating a Bedouin sheik in his own country, but my object was to draw him out, and to induce him to divulge what he knew of the Golden Girdle. I was aware that I could not persuade him that I was not a magician, and I now began to hope that he was superstitious enough to think that I could see through him and everything else. I firmly believe that he had the idea that there was something mysterious about me; otherwise I cannot account for the fact that this man, the terror of all the neighbouring tribes, should now, and on many other occasions, have allowed me to speak to him, and even dictate to him in a manner such as I often did.
Faris remained silent for a long while. I was afraid that I had insulted him. I did not dare to break the silence, and in the black hours before dawn this silence became oppressive. At last I summoned up courage, and put the question—
"I trust, sheik," I said, "that I did not offend you by my open speech."
"No, my son," he replied. And I knew that by thus addressing me, he bore me no malice.
"You townsmen," he went on, "and especially you Europeans, do not understand the minds of the dwellers in the desert. Sedjur, after his return from the Hakim's house in Baghdad, told me many things about you and your curious ways. In the towns you may not have strange things influencing your destinies, as we in the desert have always with us. Perchance, you are protected from them by the soldiers and the watchmen. In this manner your eyes are blinded, and you do not see such things as we see."
"Perhaps you are right, sheik," I replied, wishing to appease him. "But tell me some of the strange things that this golden belt has done?"
"Of myself," he replied, "I know nothing about it. All that I know and believe was told to me by my father, who saw and was an actor in many of the events. Other tales, as numerous almost as the stars in the heavens, I have heard from time to time. Some of them may be true; others are undoubtedly false. Of the long, long ago, when the belt was worn by the living queen, I am ignorant. My knowledge is only of modern times, when my father was a young man. Before I had arrived at years of discretion the belt had been laid to rest again. I can just recollect my father's return to camp with his prize of war, the beautiful young mare Shahzadi, to whose daughter in later years was born my mare Kushki—and she was born full twenty summers ago."
"You never saw the belt, then," I asked.