She menaced him with the knife. "Want to lose your pants too, little man?" she asked.
He was a shy and sensitive soul at heart. He glanced at his trousers, at the knife, turned pale, moaned, and dashed for the door. Ramizail faced Mufaddal, who was nursing his calf and gaping appreciatively at the slim brown back exposed by the slave's blade.
"Turn around for a minute, al Mamun," she hissed, "while I fix my robes. If you don't, the last thing you'll see will be this silver sliver!" She flashed the knife within an inch of his popping orbs. He hastily swiveled round and faced the wall.
"One would think you were deficient in the body, and ashamed of it," he growled.
"If you would care to see just how extremely undeficient I am, you big baboon," she said, slicing off the whole top of her cream-colored outer robe and knotting it around her ample bosom in the form of a halter, with the copper-hued gown caught beneath it to chastely cover her diaphragm, "then you have only to snatch one peek over your shoulder. I assure you it would give you a moment of supreme pleasure, immediately before you died." A low estimation of her own attractions was never a failing of Ramizail's. "And you would die, Mufaddal. They tell me a sliced gullet can be painful. Do you want to find out?"
"No," said Mufaddal sullenly, staring hard at the wall. What a long-clawed cat from the alleys of Hell! he thought. Had she been less beautiful, he would slay her in this instant. But he wanted her, and without blemish or scar, so he sat motionless until she said, "All right, turn around. But no more clever ideas from you, or I'll really grow angry." She tucked the knife into her girdle as he pushed himself around to face her.
"Very well," he said, "I'll buy you. I respect your spirit, woman. 'Tis a trait I like in my women. How now, if I heaped your lap with emeralds and nephrite jade?"
"Green was never one of my favorite colors," said she, sitting down comfortably across the rug from him. She cast about for a way to show her absolute contempt, bethought herself of her playing cards which she always carried with her, and drew the pack out of a purse she wore on her girdle.
"What are they?" he asked, intrigued in spite of himself, as she began to lay them out on the rug.