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“Get down! Get down, madman!”

With fear the traveler alighted, holding his donkey by the bridle. The rope was promptly snatched from his hand and thrust into that of the negro, who stood grinning by.

“Go on—on to the khan! Destroy that beast!—hide him!—drown him. Y’ Allah!” hissed the same voice of authority and anger.

More and more alarmed, Shems-ud-dìn faced Milhem. The latter seized his arm.

“Come away! This way or that, what recks it?... And now, peradventure, thou wilt deign to inform me why, in the Holy Name, thou masqueradest as a jester, riding upon an ass, preceded by three old men, all on one pattern, all of them also riding upon asses; so that people, deeming it a portent, ask: ‘What means this strange riding?’ Thou couldst well afford a fine horse apiece for thyself and thy servant. What ails thee that thou must needs play the mountebank?”

“I must return to my friends,” said Shems-ud-dìn, disengaging his arm. “They will wonder what has befallen me.”

“Thy friends!... That absurd procession!... Allah witness, it is a child!—a little child!” Milhem raised eyes to heaven, while his laugh rang out. “Must I tell thee that thou art a great man here? All the learned await thy visit with impatience. They would have ridden forth to meet thee. And behold thee seated upon the sorriest scrub of an ass that ever I saw; preceded by three old men, all the sons of one mother, all born at one birth, all as like as camels. What can one say? It is a miracle, perhaps!”