The cook fell prostrate, then turned over on his back. His mouth hung open idiotically; his tongue lolled out.
'Now rise and kiss my boot.'
The cook obeyed. By that time there were murmurs of compassion from the would-be slayers.
'Spake I not truly?' asked Suleymân.
'Aye, O sun of verity! He is quite mad, the poor one,' said the old man who had acted spokesman. 'It were a sin for us to kill him, being in that state. His manner at the first deceived us. Allah heal him! How came the dreadful malady upon him?'
'It came upon him through the pangs of unrequited love.'
'Alas, the poor one! Ah, the misery of men! May Allah heal him!' cried the women, as the group of villagers moved off, contented. Just when the last of them passed out of sight the longest tongue I ever saw in man emerged from the cook's mouth, and the rascal put his finger to his nose in a derisive gesture. Those portents were succeeded by a realistic cock-crow.
'What makes the cook like that, devoid of reverence?' I asked of Suleymân.
'It is because he was born in Jerusalem,' was the astonishing reply. 'He is a Christian, and was born poor; and the quarrels of the missionaries over him, each striving to obtain his patronage for some absurd belief, have made him what he is—a kind of atheist.'
Selîm, the waiter, who was near and overheard this ending, burst out laughing.