his shoulders, and opened his eyes wider than before, as much as to say,
"I don't think at all; what do you think?"

"It is not the prospect of passing the night in this damp hole, bound hand
and foot, that chafes me to madness, and makes my very blood boil in my
veins," resumed the young man after a pause. "That is a small matter,
but"--

"A small matter!" interrupted Hassan with unusual vivacity. "That is,
because you have forgotten the most dreadful part of our position. Bound
hand and foot as we are, we can expect nothing less than to fall, ere
cock-crow, into the power of Satan."

"Of Satan!" repeated the other. "Has terror turned thy brain?"

"Of a truth, the Evil One has already tied the three fatal nooses which he
hangs over the head of the sleeping believer," replied the old Mahometan
in a lachrymose tone. "He who awakes and forthwith invokes the holy name
of Allah, is thereby delivered from the first noose; by performing his
ablutions, the second becomes loosened; and by fervent prayer he unties
the third. Our bonds render it impossible for us to wash, and the second
noose, therefore, will remain suspended over our devoted heads."

"Runs it so in the Koran, old man?" asked the youth.

"In the Koran! What Mussulman are you? It is the hundred and forty-ninth
passage of the Suna."

"The Suna!" repeated the other, in a tone of indifference. "If that is all,
it will not break my slumbers."