Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 3 (1925-09).djvu/38

"Nonsense!" flared the sultan. "Have you no imagination? An amour is carried on in my own harem, under my very nose; and were it not for my intuition, it would still be going on. And here you suggest such commonplace punishments as though they had merely defrauded in the payment of the salt tax, or had stolen a prayer rug from the mosque!"

"My lord is a mountain of sagacity," interposed the wazir, penitently. "What would he suggest?"

The sultan shook his head despairingly.

"Ismail, you are an utter ass! You, my chief advisor, failing me when I am in need of wise counsel! I wish something novel in the way of punishment, and here you suggest the reward of a thieving camel driver!"

Odd and curious punishments were the sultan's forte; and on this occasion, he demanded something distinctly different from the sanguinary slaughter and dismemberment that were the portion of petty offenders; he demanded a touch of the unique, something to tickle his sense of humor, of poetic justice. And far into the night the sultan and his chief wazir wrangled and debated, considering the matter from all angles.

All the while, Amru the scribe, whom the sultan had neglected to dismiss, nodded sleepily at the foot of his master's dais, and pondered on the exceeding folly and cruelty of old men who kept young and beautiful girls imprisoned in seraglios. He silently cursed the old man his master, who plotted strange vengeance after the fashion of a scholar resolving an abstruse problem; he cursed that fate which forced him, Amru, to sit impotently among scrolls and reeds, and hear of that which would leave the noble Idrisi a shapeless, mangled horror, a frothing, gibbering madman. And though the Prophet (upon whom be peace and power!) had denied souls to women, he shuddered as he listened to that which might be the portion of the lovely bayadere.

And then a new touch was noted in the sultan's discourse; his imagination was asserting itself in a vein of savage humor that was a distinct departure from even his most novel devices. A decision had been formed. Amru heard, and hearing, gained hope. Reflectively, the old man fingered several gold pieces he had withdrawn from his wallet. To discover where the lovers were imprisoned was by no means impossible. There was still a chance, a chance he would take though it cost him his head; for Mamoun was the friend of Amru, and a noble young man who respected old poets. And as Amru listened to the sultan's perfecting of the device under consideration, his hopes flamed high and fiercely. A word, but a word or two. . .

Yet all this brave hope was vanity: for the sultan, after dismissing his wazir, addressed the scribe.

"Amru, due to my carelessness you have heard more than is good for you. Mamoun is your friend; and to leave you free to work your will tonight would inflict too great a strain upon your loyalty to me, your master."

The scribe's wrinkled features were devoid of expression as he met the sultan's hard, keen gaze; but he sensed that the sultan's intuition had divined his very thoughts.

"And to save you from being torn between loyalty to me and your friendship for Mamoun," continued the sultan, "I shall keep you within arm's reach until sunrise, after which it will be too late for you to be overcome by kindly sentiments."

Again the old despot smiled in anticipation of the doom that was to be inflicted the following morning.

"What is my lord's pleasure?"

"You shall spend the night in shackles at the foot of my couch,