who bowed low and then arranged themselves, the women in front
and the men behind of us, and in this order we continued our procession
past several doorways hung with curtains resembling those leading to
our own quarters, and which I afterwards found opened out into chambers
occupied by the mutes who attended on _She_. A few paces more and we
came to another doorway facing us, and not to our left like the others,
which seemed to mark the termination of the passage. Here two more
white-, or rather yellow-robed guards were standing, and they too
bowed, saluted, and let us pass through heavy curtains into a great
antechamber, quite forty feet long by as many wide, in which some eight
or ten women, most of them young and handsome, with yellowish hair, sat
on cushions working with ivory needles at what had the appearance of
being embroidery frames. These women were also deaf and dumb. At the
farther end of this great lamp-lit apartment was another doorway closed
in with heavy Oriental-looking curtains, quite unlike those that hung
before the doors of our own rooms, and here stood two particularly
handsome girl mutes, their heads bowed upon their bosoms and their hands
crossed in an attitude of humble submission. As we advanced they each
stretched out an arm and drew back the curtains. Thereupon Billali did
a curious thing. Down he went, that venerable-looking old gentleman--for
Billali is a gentleman at the bottom--down on to his hands and knees,
and in this undignified position, with his long white beard trailing on
the ground, he began to creep into the apartment beyond. I followed him,
standing on my feet in the usual fashion. Looking over his shoulder he
perceived it.

"Down, my son; down, my Baboon; down on to thy hands and knees. We enter
the presence of _She_, and, if thou art not humble, of a surety she will
blast thee where thou standest."

I halted, and felt scared. Indeed, my knees began to give way of their
own mere motion; but reflection came to my aid. I was an Englishman,
and why, I asked myself, should I creep into the presence of some savage
woman as though I were a monkey in fact as well as in name? I would not
and could not do it, that is, unless I was absolutely sure that my life
or comfort depended upon it. If once I began to creep upon my knees I
should always have to do so, and it would be a patent acknowledgment of
inferiority. So, fortified by an insular prejudice against "kootooing,"
which has, lik