lf.

"Ah! thou art there, old man. Tell me how it is that things have gone
wrong in thine household. Forsooth, it seems that these my guests were
set upon. Ay, and one was nigh to being slain by the hot-pot to be eaten
of those brutes, thy children, and had not the others fought gallantly
they too had been slain, and not even I could have called back the life
which had been loosed from the body. What means it, old man? What hast
thou to say that I should not give thee over to those who execute my
vengeance?"

Her voice had risen in her anger, and it rang clear and cold against the
rocky walls. Also I thought I could see her eyes flash through the gauze
that hid them. I saw poor Billali, whom I had believed to be a very
fearless person, positively quiver with terror at her words.

"Oh 'Hiya!' oh _She_!" he said, without lifting his white head from the
floor. "Oh _She_, as thou art great be merciful, for I am now as ever
thy servant to obey. It was no plan or fault of mine, oh _She_, it was
those wicked ones who are called my children. Led on by a woman whom thy
guest the Pig had scorned, they would have followed the ancient custom
of the land, and eaten the fat black stranger who came hither with these
thy guests the Baboon and the Lion who is sick, thinking that no word
had come from thee about the Black one. But when the Baboon and the Lion
saw what they would do, they slew the woman, and slew also their servant
to save him from the horror of the pot. Then those evil ones, ay, those
children of the Wicked One who lives in the Pit, they went mad with the
lust of blood, and flew at the throats of the Lion and the Baboon and
the Pig. But gallantly they fought. Oh _Hiya_! they fought like very
men, and slew many, and held their own, and then I came and saved them,
and the evildoers have I sent on hither to Kor to be judged of thy
greatness, oh _She_! and here they are."

"Ay, old man, I know it, and to-morrow will I sit in the great hall and
do justice upon them, fear not. And for thee, I forgive thee, though
hardly. See that thou dost keep thine household better. Go."

Billali rose upon his knees with astonishing alacrity, bowed his head
thrice, and his white beard sweeping the ground, crawled down the
apartment as he had crawled up it, till he finally vanished through the
curtains, leaving me, not a little to my alarm, alone with this terrible
but most fascinating person.

XIII

AYESHA UNVEILS

"There," sai