The boy replied, “On the head,” and departed on his errand.
Thereupon I commended my soul to Allah, and entered the box, closing the lid upon me. Scarcely had I concealed myself, when the porter entered and lifted the chest. The boy assisted him to take it upon his back, and he bore it out into the market-street.
“Now by the beard of the Prophet (on whom be peace),” I exclaimed to myself, “it is well that I am named Es-Samit, the Silent; for had it been otherwise, I must have lifted up my voice against this son of perdition who carries me with my soles raised to heaven!”
The porter conveyed me for some distance, panting beneath the weight of the box, and, presently, coming to a mastabah, dropped one end of the box upon it, whilst he rested himself.
“Now as Allah is great, and Mohammed his only prophet,” I said in my beard, “I am fortunate in that I have acquired a paucity of diction. There is no other in Cairo, but the joy of my mother, that could refrain from speech when dropped upon his skull on a stone bench!”
After a while, the porter raised the chest again, and resumed his journey, presently coming to the house of the Walî, and dropping the box into the courtyard.
“Allah be praised!” I said. “For if this porter, whose name be accursed, did but carry me a quinary further, my silence would become even more surprising than it is; for my affair would finish, and I should speak no more to any man!”
The bowwab now cried out:
“What is in this chest?”
“Purchases of the lady Jullanar,” said the girl, whom I recognized by her voice. “Permit the porter to carry it to her apartments.”