“I thought she had a boon to crave so listened to her, but when she told her news I took her by the throat to strangle her, but in choking breath she vowed the great vow, therefore I listened again, and though I were like to die of shame I took counsel with her, asking her the price of her information, whereupon she merely muttered ‘revenge,’ and showed her breast which was a festering sore caused by the boiling water which her mistress had flung upon her when the scissors had proved over sharp.

“Whereupon I withdrew the handmaidens from the beautiful Zuleikha with the exception of one, cross-bred of French and Tunisian, who, though of passing beauty, scorned all men, it seemed, and passed her days in waiting upon the whims of her mistress, and tending to the beauties of her body.

“I know not how far the women of the West are versed in the knowledge of evil, therefore will I speak in words that are veiled.  Be it that I—­I, Hahmed, the son of my great father, demeaned myself to spy between the perfumed curtains of my bride’s chamber, to witness the passionate farewells of the two beautiful women.  Allah!  That such things should be.  Tears streamed down the cheeks of she who was to share my couch, as the slave, the unclean half-caste, beat her breast in her despair, and letting loose the strands of thick black hair which covered her to the knees, knotted it around until it covered, as a mantle, the body of she who had been anointed for my pleasure.

“And then I tore down the curtains and strode in upon them, bound one to another in their disgrace, and clapping my hands brought eight women as witnesses to my shame.  And still bound with the thongs of hair I threw the sinners naked across my horse, and made my way to the woman’s house, and before a great assembly, for behold, the guests had not yet departed, I flung them at the feet of the woman’s father, and calling my witnesses spake my tale.  And when I had finished, the wailing of grief was heard in the land.  And then they were unbound and brought before me, and the half-caste mocked me.  Me!  Until I took her hair within my hands and twisting it about her neck, stopped her speech for ever, and when she fell dead, Zuleika my wife, Allah! hear me, my wife! screamed in terror, for I ordered my slaves to seize her.  And then the Sheik el Banjad, her father, pronounced judgment, quoting from the Koran as is written in the second verse of the 24th Sura.

“’Shall you scourge with a hundred stripes, and let not compassion towards them prevent you from executing the judgment of God, if ye believe in God, and the last day.’

“And to the scourging was added the punishment of death, for behold, the Moslem law is less lenient than the Holy Book, also of such a case is it not written in the Koran.  And Zuleika, my wife, was bound naked to a pillar and scourged with a hundred stripes.  And the city in which had taken place the marriage, and in which both her father and my father had great property being built upon flat ground, there was, therefore, no height from which to throw her, neither well in which to fling her without fear of polluting the water, for time, alas, is making us softer towards misdeeds, so that such places of punishment are disappearing quickly.”