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," said _She_, "he has gone, the white-bearded old fool! Ah, how
little knowledge does a man acquire in his life. He gathereth it up like
water, but like water it runneth through his fingers, and yet, if his
hands be but wet as though with dew, behold a generation of fools call
out, 'See, he is a wise man!' Is it not so? But how call they thee?
'Baboon,' he says," and she laughed; "but that is the fashion of these
savages who lack imagination, and fly to the beasts they resemble for a
name.
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