he, "O my lord, the while I was sitting at the gate suddenly a
man passed up the street and entered the house-door; and, when I
would have beaten him, he cried at me with a terrible voice
saying, 'Ho, thou ill-omened slave!' So I fled from him in
affright and came hither to thee." Now when the Emir Yunas heard
his words, he raged with such excessive rage that his soul was
like to leave his body and he cried out saying, "Since the man
addressed thee as 'ill-omened slave,' and thou art my chattel, I
therefore am servile and of evil-omen. But indeed I will show him
his solace!" He then sprang to his feet and hent in hand a file-
wrought mace[FN#156] studded with fourteen spikes, wherewith had
he smitten a hill he had shivered it; and then he went forth into
the street muttering, "I, ill-omened!"[FN#157] But the Caliph
seeing him recognised him straitway and cried, "Yunas!" whereat
the Emir knew him by his voice, and casting the mace from his
hand kissed ground and said, "'Tis well, O Commander of the
Faithful!" Harun replied, "Woe to thee, dog! whilst thou art the
Chief of the Emirs shall this Wali, of men the meanest, come upon
thy neighbours and oppress them and terrify them (these being
women and without a man in the house), and yet thou holdest thy
peace and sittest in ease at home nor goest out to him and
ejectest him by the foulest of ejections?" Presently the other
replied, "O Prince of True Believers, but for the dread of thee
lest thou say, 'This be the warder of the watch, why hast thou
exceeded with him?' I would have made for him a night of the
fulsomest, for him and for those with him. But an the Caliph
command I will forthright break them all to bits nor leave
amongst them a sound man; for what's the worth of this Wali and
all his varlets?" "First admit us to thy mansion," quoth the
Commander of the Faithful; so they passed in and the housemaster