By-and-by they lifted him to a sitting posture and gave him more of the burning fluid to drink. He sat for a little while swaying to and fro, an insane grin on his swarthy face. Seeing his cap and turban lie at some distance upon the floor, he conceived an indistinct notion of trying to reach them upon his hands and knees; but they were so far off he fell asleep on the way.
XIV
Saïd awoke to a headache and violent sickness. Supposing himself on the sea in a tempest, he marvelled at the quiet all about him. Presently he sat up and essayed to rub his eyes, but sudden dizziness caused him to fall back again with a groan. His couch was hard and wooden, like the planked deck of a ship, strewn, however, with something soft and powdery, like sand or sawdust. The place where he lay was dark and had a nauseous smell. He was distressed with thirst. “Water!—Water!” he moaned. “In the name of Allah, bring me a little water!—”
But the tones of his voice rang lonely in an empty room.
Events of the previous night loomed on his mind, as forms seen gigantic through mist. Sore shame and anguish fell upon him, illumined in a moment by a sudden terror. His money, his last ray of hope—where was it? He felt in the bosom of his robe, fingering his hairy chest frantically. The pouch and the string which held it were gone—stolen! He fumbled in every part of his clothing and scoured the floor with his hands; but in vain. “O Allah, All-merciful!—” He beat his breast with hoarse cries of rage and despair.
From a trance of grief, embittered by feverish thirst, he was roused by the noise of footsteps in an adjoining room. A light shone yellow through a glass hatch in the wall of partition, throwing long shadows of bottles upon the pane. He could hear a swishing noise, as of someone sweeping diligently with a broom. His eyes, sharpened by the habit of darkness, saw every part of the chamber in which he lay. It was the same to which the sailor had brought him. At sight of the tables and benches his shame redoubled so that he wept aloud. He picked up his tarbûsh and turban, which had been kicked under a trestle, and made haste to put them on. It degraded him to know that he had played the buffoon, bareheaded, in the sight of unbelievers. The sound of his lamentation filled the room.
A door opened and a woman looked in upon him. She held a candle aloft in one hand, while with the other she screened her eyes from the flame. The light reddened between her fingers and shed a warm glow on her dirty face. She yawned as one not yet wide awake, and spoke crossly to him. He stretched out his hands, beseeching her by gestures to give him to drink; but she only grew angry, and setting down the candlestick upon a bench, shook her fist in his face and nodded significantly towards the door. Saïd strove to reason with her, craving only a little water to quench the thirst ravaging him; but she cried out and pushed him from her. The noise of approaching footsteps and a man’s voice came to second her endeavours. Hearing those sounds and dreading fresh violence at the hands of the lord of the house, Saïd suffered the dirty woman to unbar the door for him, and fled out precipitately into the sharp air of the morning.
Having made a few paces, he turned with a shiver to look back at the place he was leaving. It was a two-storeyed house, flanked with two chimneys. A board upon the face of it seemed to be painted with characters or symbols, but he could not see much in the dark with only a distant lamp to help him. It stood in a region of blind walls and scattered dwellings of dilapidated appearance. There was a flagstaff on the roof, which made Saïd think it was a consulate. Beyond, the masts and rigging of great ships seemed drawn with a pencil upon the first pale mist of dawn. In the gloom of the door by which he had come forth he descried the form of a big man in act to watch him; and he shuffled hurriedly away, his face pinched with the cold.
He walked aimlessly forward, not knowing which way to take, desirous only to escape from that wicked quarter to some part of the city where men of honour dwelt, where he might happen on a Muslim in the streets. More than once he found his way blocked by a dingy wall and had to retrace his steps. Many men passed him, clad in soiled garments and carrying tools or sacks. They stared, turning their faces after him; but, being sleepy for the most part, they did not hinder or molest him. Day broke at his back, suffusing the dun mist wanly. It showed a thin dust like salt whitening the ground, the housetops, and along the coping of the walls. The air was biting; it stung his nostrils so that he smelt blood. To get a little warmth, he tucked his hands beneath his robe and stamped his slippered feet hard upon the pavement.
In the shelter of an entry he found a little dry dust, with which he rubbed his face, hands and feet preparatory to saying his prayers. In the midst of his devotions, however, heavy footfalls sounded in the street, and a tall man, darkly-clad, with a strange form of hat and a cudgel
