Her affectionate anxiety melted my heart still further and I said, “Nothing terrible has happened. Everything indeed is going better than I could have hoped. The Deliverer will come tomorrow at cockcrow, and for you great things-happier things than you can imagine-are in store. So let us make much of one another, for spring is here and we’re alone in the house with none to see us save the dog, who need not make us bashful.”
Giulia clapped her hands for joy and cried, “How I long to see the great Deliverer who rules the seas! Surely he’ll reward me very generously for having so diligently foretold the future on his behalf, and prepared the way for his coming. Perhaps he will allow me to look into the sand alone with him. They say his beard is soft, and chestnut brown. He has certainly all the wives the law allows him, and the mother of his son is a direct descendant of the Prophet. Still, he may incline to me and keep me beside him.”
Her prattle oppressed me, and when I sought to fold her in my arms she quickly veiled her face, stamped on my toes and said, “Are you out of your mind, Michael, to behave thus in the absence of our master? Control yourself. And where did you get that fine kaftan? If you would give it to me I could make a charming jacket out of it.”
She began eagerly feeling the material; in the dim light of the lamp she was so marvelously beautiful that I could not resist her, and reluctantly I let her remove the kaftan, which indeed was the most splendid garment I had ever worn. She crushed it in her bare arms, greedily breathing in its pleasant scent of musk, and cried, “Will you really give it to me, Michael? If so you may kiss me, but in all innocence. I’m a fiery woman and have trouble enough as it is to protect my virtue.”
She allowed me to kiss her cheek and even offered me her lips, but when I would have taken her in my arms she struggled and threatened to scream and stamped on my toes until I had to let her go. As soon as she was free she fled with the kaftan to her alcove, slamming and locking the grille and deriding my prayers and tears. As I stood there half-naked shaking the wrought-iron gate I remembered for the first time that I had left my slave clothes in the kasbah, and so had nothing to put on to greet the Deliverer in the morning.
Tossing sleepless on my bed that night I was yet comforted by the thought that tomorrow Giulia would be my slave and my lawful property. I resolved to exact full requital for her torment of me, and hoped that she was not quite indifferent, since she had shown such anxiety for me and had accepted my kaftan as a present. Comforted I fell asleep and did not wake until the cocks of the city began to crow, and the joyful voice of the muezzin proclaimed that prayer was better than sleep. I looked up and saw to my astonishment that the muezzin was leaping and dancing on the balcony of the minaret; now he was proclaiming the coming of the Deliverer. Rising hastily, I flung on what garments I could find, grasped Giulia’s hand and sped with her up the steep street leading to the palace. The dog followed us with joyous barks, trying to tug at the cloak I had thrown over my shoulders.
The whole populace was on its feet, some running to the palace, but most hastening to the western gates to meet the Deliverer beyond the walls and follow him into the city. They laughed and pointed at me and the dog, but I took no notice, reflecting that he laughs best who laughs last. We had a setback at the palace gates, however, for the guards flatly refused us admission, but fortunately a scared eunuch appeared, who recognized me. Stammering with fear he promised to take me to Abu el-Kasim, and begged me in return to say a good word for him. In my extremity I promised all he asked, and he led me through the Courtyard of Bliss to a small room where Abu el- Kasim, with red-rimmed eyes and clearly in a bad humor, was just finishing his breakfast. A flock of slave women were in attendance, but although they held up one magnificent kaftan after another and besought him to make haste and dress since Mustafa ben-Nakir and his suite had long since ridden to meet the Deliverer, he cut them over the shins with a cane and said, “No! I’m a poor man and dislike strutting in borrowed plumage. Bring my plain spice merchant’s cloak whose smells are familiar to me and whose fleas know me. In that garment I have served the Deliverer and in that garment I will meet him, that with his own eyes he may behold my poverty.”
The slaves wrung their hands and with lamentations brought out the ragged old cloak. Abu smelt it joyfully, combed out hair and beard with his fingers and allowed the terrified eunuch to help him on with the dreadful garment. Then only did he turn his eyes to me and say angrily, “Where in Allah’s name have you been, Michael? I hope you haven’t lost the golden dish and the Sultan’s head? We should have been in the mosque long ago, to meet the Deliverer.”
I had in fact not the remotest idea what had become of these things, and I hastened off on a frantic search through the various courtyards. Luckily the friendly eunuch came to my help; he had taken care of both head and dish and set them on the top of a pillar. No harm was done, therefore, except that Selim’s head had begun to take on a most hideous appearance, and that the dish seemed much smaller than before.
With these objects under my arm I returned to Abu el-Kasim, and was distressed to behold Giulia embracing and kissing and coaxing that remarkably unhandsome man. He wept, but was prevailed upon at last to send the slave women to the store chamber of the harem, and they returned with such a wealth of veils and slippers that Giulia was hard put to it to decide what pleased her best.
To me Abu el-Kasim gave Mustafa ben-Nakir’s mendicant dress, which after some hesitation I put on. Being used to garments reaching to the ground, I had the uneasy sensation of nakedness from the waist down. But the tunic was of the finest and softest stuff, and with every step I took the bells rang so sweetly that Giulia surveyed me wide eyed and assured me that I need not be ashamed of my bare knees and shapely calves. She sent for the necessary ointments and rapidly painted my hands and feet orange color, and then, since no headdress was worn with this costume, she oiled my hair with fine oils and applied blue beneath my eyes so that I hardly recognized myself when I looked in the mirror.
Before we set forth for the mosque, Abu wanted to see how Andy was faring. He took me to the cellars of the palace, moved aside an iron trap door and pointed to Andy, who lay sprawled on the hard stone floor below us, moaning in his sleep. His narrow cell was lit by a small window with bars across it as thick as my wrist. He was quite naked, and beside him stood a water jar, which was already empty. The compassionate Abu ordered the guards to refill it, and to lower a great quantity of bread. I pitied Andy deeply, but saw that he must be kept in that bear pit until he had quite recovered, or he would seek to combat the effects of his drinking bout with a fresh one, and his last state would be worse than the first. Lest he should feel lonely when he woke, I left my dog with him in his cell.
When we had left the evil-smelling cellars and our eyes had become accustomed to the sunlight on the high terrace, we saw the Deliverer just riding through the western gate of the city, followed by a large troop of cavalry. Weapons flashed in the sun, and the vast crowds, which had come to meet him, waved palm branches and shouted and cheered until their voices came to our ears like the boom of a distant sea. Through the quivering heat we could see also a number of vessels riding at anchor in the farther bay. We counted nearly twenty of them, all bedecked with flags and pennants.
We hastened down into the city, and with difficulty elbowed our way into the packed mosque. We could never have managed it if I had not jingled my bells to make the people believe I was a holy man. They would have made way for us readily enough if I had displayed what I carried under my arm, but I had covered the golden dish with a cloth, for who could tell whether there might not lurk among them some adherent of Selim ben-Hafs?