The other shrugged his shoulders.
“They talk of a fierce tiger being let loose,” he murmured. “One never knows what may happen.”
He vouchsafed no further information. Indeed, at that moment, Jahangir put in an appearance. His swarthy face was flushed and there was an evil glint in his close set eyes. Evidently he had been imbibing liquor forbidden by the Prophet. Accompanied by a few young noblemen whose appearance betokened the force of kingly example, he strode towards his chair without paying the slightest attention to the respectful salaams of the crowd.
“Bring the sheep first,” he grunted. “We shall deal with the pigs later.”
This obscure joke was greeted with shouts of laughter.
“Karamat! Karamat!”[G] was the exclamation, for every Mahomedan there had laid to heart the Persian proverb:—
“Should the King say that it is night at noon,
Be sure to cry: ‘Behold, I see the moon!’”
Yet Mowbray, alert to discern the slightest straw-twist on the swirl of the current, thought that some of the older men glanced askance at each other, which puzzled him, as he knew quite well that the death of a Feringhi was of little account to an Asiatic.
The “sheep” alluded to by Jahangir were veritable carcases of those animals, slung from poles by the feet tied in a bunch. They were carried by servants onto the terrace itself, and forthwith a few athletic youths created some excitement by endeavoring, in the first place, to cut through the four feet at one blow, and, secondly, to divide the body in the same way. They used their razor-edged simitars with much skill, science rather than great strength being demanded by the task.