“This thy dwelling is beneath the surface of the earth,” I observed, glancing around me. “Why dwellest thou here in secret?”
“The true Arab answereth not the question of Ahamadou, Sheikh of the Azjar Touaregs,” he replied, with a sneering accentuation on the final word. “Allah hath sent thee as my guest; partake of all that I have, but seek no explanation of who or of what I am.”
He evidently recognised me, and his strange words puzzled me. First, I had no idea that such a luxurious abode could exist in the centre of that inhospitable region; secondly, the very fact pointed to the conclusion that in my flight I had approached near to a town; but thirdly, I had already proof positive that my strange host, the man who declared he had saved my life, lied to me. At the well where we had halted on the day before the fight, I had plucked a sprig of jasmine, and placed a tiny piece behind my ear, beneath the black nicab around my head. This I recollected, and, taking it in my hand, found it still limp and undried. By that alone I knew I had not been there many hours, and that his story was untrue.
I suggested that I should be reluctantly compelled to leave; but he at once became profuse in his hospitality.
“No, not yet,” he urged. “I am alone, save for my slaves, and thy companionship is pleasant. Remain, and I will show thee over this my hidden dwelling-place. It may interest thee.” And taking down a torch, he lit it and led the way across a tiny bridge that spanned the running water, and opening a door in the rock, conducted me through several intricate passages, narrow and dark, until we came to a series of caverns of various sizes, each hung with rich silken hangings, and the floors covered by the most beautiful carpets from the East. Over each a great golden lamp of filigree shed a soft light, showing how rich and costly were the antique tables of inlaid pearl and silver, and how wide and soft were the divans. In each the thin blue smoke, curling upward from the golden perfuming-pan, gave forth an intoxicating fragrance, and in one I noticed lying discarded a pair of tiny green slippers, embroidered with seed-pearls, and a ginkra, one of those little two-stringed guitars fashioned from a tortoise-shell, both betraying the presence of a woman.
When we had passed through half a dozen similar chambers in the solid rock, the old man, croaking as he went, stopped suddenly at the further end of the last and most gorgeous of all his subterranean domain, and with a grim expression on his evil countenance, said—
“And this is the Bab-el-Hâwiyat—the dreaded Gate of Evil, whence none return.” I started, and drew back. Throughout the Desert there has been for all ages a legend that somewhere there exists the entrance to the dreaded kingdom of darkness where Eblis reigneth. He opened wide the small door; but there was only darkness impenetrable, and an odour of damp earth. Holding his torch aloft, he crossed the threshold, and bade me peer in. Then I distinguished, a few spans from where he stood, a great yawning chasm opening to the very bowels of the earth.
“Hearken!” he cried in his squeaking, uncanny voice, at the same time returning into the room and snatching up from one of the coffee-stools a large metal dish, which an instant later he hurled into the dark abyss.
I listened to ascertain its depth. But no sound came back. I shuddered, for I knew it was unfathomable.
As he faced me in closing the door I detected in his keen eyes a strange exultant look, and was seized by a sudden desire to ascend once again to the light of day. True, I could have crushed the life out of him as easily as I could crush a spider in my fingers, while in my belt was my jambiyah that had a score of times tasted the life-blood of mine enemies, yet he had not harmed me, and to kill one’s host is forbidden by Al-Korân. Therefore I stayed my hand.