Hassan had a restless night. Horrible dreams awoke him every instant, and yet he never wholly awoke, one phantom constantly supplanted the other in his agitated brain.
The raging blast broke open one of the windows and beat furiously against the wall, so that the coloured glasses crashed down upon the floor.
Aroused by the uproar, and gazing but half awake at the window, he saw the long curtain slowly approaching him as if some Dzhin were inside and had come thither to terrify him.
"Who is that?" cried Hassan in terror, laying his hand on his sword.
It was no one. It was only the wind which had stiffened out the curtains, expanding them like a banner and blowing gustily into the room.
Hassan seized the curtain, pulled it away from the window, fastened it up by its golden tassels, and laid him down again. The wind returned to torment him and again worried the curtain till it had succeeded in unravelling the tassels, and again blew the curtain into the room.
And then the tapestries of the door and the divans began fluttering and flapping as if someone was tugging away at their ends, and the flame of the night-lamp on the tripod flickered right and left, casting galloping shadows on the wall.
"What is that? Have the devils been let loose in this palace?" Hassan asked himself in amazement.
The closed doors jarred in the blast as if someone was banging at them from the outside, and every now and then the bang of a window-shutter would respond to the howling of the blast.