‘Bah!’ cried Jaffur impatiently, ‘and thou art a fool to believe them;’ and he fell to musing. ‘He must have seen her face,’ he said at length aloud.
‘He must,’ echoed his attendant; ‘they say he carried her in his arms from the river.’
‘Khoob! and what said they of her beauty?’
‘That she is as fair as the full moon in the night of Shub-i-Barāt.’
‘Khoob! and he has seen her again, I doubt not, since then.’
‘Willa alum!’ said Madar, raising his thumbs to his ears.
‘How should your slave know? but it is likely,—people cannot conceal their faces when they are travelling.’
‘No, nor, Inshalla! wish to do so! but we shall see,—take care that you mention not abroad what occurred this evening,—they will forget it.’
‘But my lord will not!’
‘I never forget an insult till I have had its exchange, and that thou well knowest, Madar. Begone! make it known without that I may now be visited. We will consider of this matter.’