Black Robe entered with eyes averted.
“Well, wretched vermin!” roared the Pasha in sudden wrath; “do you tell me they are not here?”
The man, with his head bumping on the carpet, visibly trembled.
“Most noble,” he replied hoarsely, “your lowly slave has exerted himself to the utmost——”
“Out! son of a calamity!” shouted the Pasha—and before my astonished eyes he raised the heavy narghli and hurled it at the bowed head of the man before him.
It struck the white turban with a resounding crack, and then was shattered to bits upon the floor. It was a blow to have staggered a mule. But Black Robe, without apparent loss of dignity, rose and departed, bowing.
The Pasha sat rocking about, and plucking madly at his beard.
“O Allah!” he cried, “how I suffer.” He turned to me. “Never since the day that another of your race (but, this one, a true son of Satan) came to my palace, have I tasted so much suffering. You shall judge of my clemency, O imprudent stranger, and pacify your heart with the spectacle of another’s punishment.”
He clapped his hands twice. This time there was a short delay, which the Pasha suffered impatiently; then there entered the squint-eyed man, together with the two Scimitars.