"Hemjunah," said he, "are you as yet disposed to yield yourself to the will of Bennaskar, or must we still experience the evils of opposite enchantment?"
"Wretch!" answered the fair stranger, "I fear not the powers of your accursed magic, for Macoma has assured me that you shall not be able to harm me except with my own consent; and Mahomet, though for a time he permits this enchantment, will at length assuredly deliver me."
"Then," answered Bennaskar, "must the lash be inflicted. Here," continued he, "slave Mahoud, inflict fifty lashes on that obdurate female."
I took the chabouc from Bennaskar, and began, with trembling, my cruel office, lamenting my own blind compliance in promising to obey a monster whom I had mistaken for a friend.
As the lash touched the beautiful Hemjunah, she made the vaulted roof re-echo with her cries; nor did my heart feel less sensibly the strokes which I gave than her own. The tears trickled down my cheeks, and I prayed inwardly to be delivered from the hateful task.
"What," said Bennaskar from the closet, "what doth Hemjunah now say to my desires?"
"The hard-hearted and the cruel," said Hemjunah, faintly, "are the last to win the soft affections of a female heart: rather let me die than be the property of the vile Bennaskar."
"If so," said he, coming from the closet, "die: for the present I resign my power. Let Macoma hide thee again in the dust of the earth."
Bennaskar no sooner appeared than the beautiful Hemjunah again seemed to die away, and immediately a hissing noise was heard, and an ugly dwarf arose from the trap-door, and took the body of Hemjunah and replaced it in the earth, and the trap-door was closed with a roaring noise.