“O Mâs, I dare go no farther. Take thou this piece of raiment—the raiment of the beloved—and go and hang it on the blessed tree.”
“Alone?” Mâs laughed to scorn the notion. “I love the dear one, but go alone by night to a chosen haunt of devils, I will not! In the daytime ask me.”
“Allah forbid! Is it not a secret for the dark to hide that thou sayest ‘in the daytime’? ‘The daytime!’ Allah, listen!”
“Since our lord gave thee leave to go, what is to hide?”
“Leave! Allah knows he has given leave enough. A sin, indeed, if recourse might be had to Frankish wizards and not to that gentle tree!”
“Then come. We waste time.”
Seeing she would still have tarried, scolding, Mâs lifted her up and placed her bodily upon the donkey’s back. Then taking the headrope in his hand, he strode forward.
No sooner did Fatmeh recover breath than she began to inveigh against all male creatures, but principally those on whom the wrath of God is manifest in a black hide. Things, she declared, were come to a pretty pass when a slave dared order the goings of his mistress, and carry her whither she would not. But to all her tirades Mâs replied tranquilly:
“Since when art thou my lady? Thou art not all thou wouldst be.”
After a time words failed her. Only a moan, when some exceptional roughness made her bump the pack saddle, assured Mâs that she was still there behind him. At length she besought him, whimpering: