I asked him what that had to do with it, and after about an hour of urging, with the greatest difficulty he told me, but he had to turn his back to the long feathers, for every time his eyes caught sight of them, he wiggled and twisted, gasped and choked, and would have burrowed his head in the sand at my feet if I had not made him stand up straight.
He said he had no words to describe his admiration for a man who could find such feathers. After about another hour he managed to face the feathers again with composure, though he accomplished it by the exercise of great care; he turned but an inch at a time, and first took a very little peek out of the tail of his eye, then one a little larger after he had got over his spasms, and so on until at last he was fairly capable of real thought. Then he begged the privilege of hefting one of them. I handed one to him, whereupon he cried aloud to his followers, who jumped to their feet and began to sing as he waved the feather backward and forward. When he had finished he returned it to me most tenderly and fell upon his face; whereupon the others did likewise.
I again spoke to him, commanding him to rise and command his fellows to do the same. Then I communicated to them my desire to dispose of my stock. They could do nothing but look at me and at the long feathers; not a word did they utter for such a time I became provoked and said if they did not want to buy to begone.
They shook their heads, saying there was no man among them rich enough to buy them. I told them to pile up their money in front of me, that I might know how much they had. I was surprised at the quantity; for it was considerable—as much as I had any particular use for. I divided the bale into equal parts, one for each Arab, and asked them if that was a fair exchange for their money, and I never saw such grinning since I learned to swim.
There were fifty women in the party, and to each of those I gave a feather from my feathered horse’s tail, and they took turns in embracing me—in fact, they kept it up until I was sore from head to foot, for sometimes there were three or four at it at once, strung along from my neck to my ankles, and I begged them to desist.
The shiek insisted I should select a wife or two from the lot as a slight token of his esteem. This kind offer I politely refused, giving as my reason that I was a man of adventure, and could not very well be burdened with a wife. At this, one of the most beautiful of the girls fell to weeping and tearing her hair. I had great difficulty in reducing her grief sufficiently for her to part with me; but at last, by filling a water-bag with gold, and presenting it to her, together with the remainder of the long feathers, I got away.
The Arabs made a pretty sight as they moved across the desert, their feathers nicely wrapped in tissue paper and waving above their heads.
XVII
In which I give an account of the receipt of a curious message concerning a most beautiful princess and a labyrinth, and start out in search of both. I also give some details on transactions on the way, which I trust will be diverting.