"Very well," said the Emir, stamping his foot, "then let him starve. In ten days more the fool will be dead. Then I will come and laugh over him. So perish all wretches who oppose the wishes of the Emir of Ellebubu!"
And in ten days' time he went to the prison, as he had said, to gloat over the terrible fate of the white man. Many of his ministers and generals came with him to help him gloat. But when the prison door was opened, instead of seeing the white man's body stretched upon the floor, the Emir found the Doctor smiling on the threshold, shaved and hearty and all spruced up. The only difference in his appearance was that with no exercise in prison he had grown slightly stouter and rounder.
The Emir stared at the prisoner open-mouthed, speechless with astonishment. Now, the day before this he had heard for the first time the story of the rout of the Amazons. The Emir had refused to believe it. But now he began to feel that anything might be true about this man.
"See," one of the ministers whispered in his ear, "the sorcerer has even shaved his beard without water or soap. Your Majesty, there is surely evil magic here. Set the man free before harm befall. Let us be rid of him."
And the frightened minister moved back among the crowd so the Doctor's evil gaze could not fall upon his face.
Then the Emir himself began to get panicky. And he gave orders that the Doctor should be released right away.
"I will not leave here," said John Dolittle, standing squarely in the door, "till you have windows put in this prison. It's a disgrace to lock up anyone in a place without windows."
"Build windows in the prison at once," the Emir said to the guards.
"And after that I won't go," said the Doctor—"not till you have set Chief Nyam-Nyam free; not till you have ordered all your people to leave his country and the Harmattan Rocks; not till you have returned to him the farming lands you robbed him of."
"It shall be done," muttered the Emir, grinding his teeth—"Only go!"