astonishment, and, as she drew herself up at
the head of her slaves and handmaids, seconded by the old Ayesha, waited
with impatient silence for an opportunity to speak. At length, when
she had found utterance, her mouth appeared too small for the volume
of words which flowed from it. Her volubility unloosed the tongue of
Ayesha, and the old woman's those of all the other women, until there
arose such a tempest of words and screams, all of which were directed
against me, that I was nearly overwhelmed.

I would have resisted, but I found it impossible. It raged with such
fury, that the room in which we all stood was not large enough to
contain us. I was the first to seek shelter, and made a retreat from my
harem amid the groans, the revilings, and the clapping of hands of the
beings within it, who, with my wife at their head, looked more like
maniacs than those fair creatures, in paradise, promised by our Prophet
to all true believers.

Tired, jaded, and distressed by my day's adventures, I retired into
my own apartment, locked the door, and there, though surrounded by
and master of every luxury that man can enjoy, I felt myself the most
miserable of beings, detesting myself for my idiotical conduct in the
present posture of my affairs, and full of evil forebodings for the
future. The inconveniences of lying now stared me full in the face.
I felt that I was caught in my own snare; for if I endeavoured to
extricate myself from my present dilemma by telling more lies, it was
evident that at the end I should not fail to be entirely entangled.

'Would to Heaven,' did I exclaim, 'that I had been fair and candid at
first; for now I should be free as air, and my wife might have stormed
until the day of judgement, without being a single shift the better for
it; but I am bound by writings, sealed and doubly sealed, and I must
ever and shall stand before the world a liar both by word and deed.'

[Illustration: Hajji disrobes. 38.jpg]

CHAPTER LXXI

He is discovered to be an impostor, loses his wife, and the wide world
is again before him.

I passed a feverish night, and did not fall asleep until the muezzins
from the minarets had announced the break of day. Scarcely had an hour
elapsed, ere I was awoke by an unusual stir, and then was informed by
one of my servants that my wife's brothers, attended by several other
persons, were in the house.

Involuntarily, upon hearing this, I was seized with a trembling, which