and yet, after having accepted our entertainment, you make no scruple to break your promise. Our easy compliance with your wishes may have occasioned this, but that shall not excuse your rudeness.” As she spoke these words, she gave three stamps with her foot, and clapping her hands as often together, cried, “Come quickly!” Upon this a door flew open, and seven black slaves rushed in; each one seized a man, threw him on the ground, and dragged him into the middle of the room, brandishing a scimitar over his head.
We may easily conceive the alarm of the caliph. He repented, too late, that he had not taken the advice of his vizier, who, with Mesrour, the calenders, and porter, were, horn his ill-timed curiosity, on the point of forfeiting their lives. Before they gave the fatal stroke, one of the slaves said to Zobeide and her sisters, “Would it not be right to interrogate them first?” On which Zobeide said, “Answer me, and say who you are, otherwise you shall not live one moment longer. I cannot believe you to be honest men, or persons of authority or distinction in your own countries; for, if you were, you would have kept the promise made us.”
The caliph, naturally, was infinitely more indignant than the rest to find his life depending upon the command of a woman: but he began to conceive some hopes, when he found she wished to know who they all were; for he imagined that she would by no means take away his life, when she should be informed of his rank. He whispered to his
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