"Just then a Dervish looking at him asked the merchant, 'What is that?'
"'It is,' answered he, 'a Frankish device which the men in Frangistan carry to keep off the rain. Their women are only allowed to carry smaller ones, so they make up for that by bearing them about in fair as well as wet weather.'
"'A device of Eblis!' exclaimed the Dervish, and muttering a verse of the Koran, walked gravely away.
"By and by came the grand Purveyor of the Caliph. He was seeking new and curious things for the Princess, who was ill and refused to eat so that day after day she became more feeble.
"'Ah!' said the Purveyor, 'This is a Frank tent. I saw them when I was Envoy to the court of Charlemagne.'
"At this Mustapha blushed, for the officer seized him and began to expand his skirts so that his leg, for he had but one, was alarmingly exposed.
"Very soon the Purveyor, having paid a good price, took Mustapha away to the Palace where he explained the uses of this portable tent.
"'This,' said he, 'Is what the Franks, whom Allah confound! call an umbrella, and the female of the thing they term a parasol.'
"'I shall need it not,' said the Princess Ellera. 'No sun will shine on me any more. On me no rain will fall. I shall die if I find nothing that I can eat.'