Page:Oriental Stories v01 n01 (1930-10).djvu/30

 My head nodded, and I heard, as if in a drcam, my lady commanding her slavewoman to serve coffee to my slaves, as there was more than enough for all of us. Then a strange sensation came over me—a feeling of exhilaration and of lightness, as if I were floating in the air like a bit of down. This was followed by strange and grotesque hallucinations, in which I would, at one time, imagine myself as tall as Mt. Nebo, and at another, as small as the ants that crawled at my feet. A word seemed to be forming itself in my mind. Presently I saw it flash in letters of fire from various points of the landscape. I saw it written on a silvery cloud in the sky above me. The word was "bhang." More I do not remember, for consciousness left me

sun had been near to setting when I lost consciousness. When I awoke it had just risen. Moreover, I was no longer in the friendly shadow of Mt. Nebo, but was surrounded by a glittering expanse of rolling sand dunes. My head ached frightfully, I had a feeling of intense nausea, and my muscles were sore and bruised as if they had been pounded. Attempting to move my arms, I found them bound to my sides. My feet, also, were tied together. I turned on my left side, and saw that my three black slaves were lying on the sand, all bound and helpless. Turning on my right side, I beheld two women and a man packing camp equipment and utensils on my kneeling camels. The man I had never seen before, but the women, their faces now indecently unveiled, were the two I had brought out with me. A mule, evidently belonging to the strange man, was tethered near my beasts.

She whom I had known as the Lady Salamah was the first to notice that I had awakened. She immediately called this to the attention of her male companion, and the two walked to where I lay. To my horror, I saw that she was attired in the costume of a common ghazeeyeh, a shameless dancing girl who displays herself before all men in vulgar postures and movements, and that her companion was a low and extremely villainous-looking hautboy player with a warty, bulbous nose and a black patch over one eye.

The fellow spurned me with his foot.

"Sit up, O son of a disease," he ordered gruffly.

"Not at your command, O spawn of a pestilence," I replied.

He kicked me again so that my ribs were near crushed in when I uttered this defiance, then swung on the girl. "Build a fire, slave, and heat the oil," he commanded. "We shall see to the case of this thief who robs the homes of true believers."

"Harkening and obedience, master," she replied, and set about building a fire.

"Now, stealer of slaves and profaner of the harim," he said addressing me once more. "You know the penalty the Koran and the law of the land impose for theft. Can you give me any good reason why I should not strike off your right hand, which is the legal penalty for the first offense?"

"What mockery is this?" I asked him. "First I am drugged with bhang and robbed. Then I am accused of theft."

"First, O father of a calamity, you committed theft. Then you were drugged and bound, but you have not been robbed. I have taken nothing from you but my own property, as Allah is my witness. Yours is untouched, and near at hand."

"Will you be so kind as to inform me what I have stolen?" I asked.

"In the first place, O dog, you stole my slave-girl, Salamah."

"She was represented to me as a great