Here are
many dresses. I will disguise myself. Trusty scimitar, thou hast done
thy duty, rest awhile. 'Tis lucky I am beardless. I shall make a capital
eunuch. So! a handsome robe. One dagger for a pinch, slippers powdered
with pearls,66 a caftan of cloth of gold, a Cachemire girdle, and a
pelisse of sables. One glance at the mirror. Good! I begin to look like
the conqueror of the world!'
It was twilight: a small and solitary boat, with a single rower, glided
along the Tigris, and stopped at the archway of a house that descended
into the river. It stopped, the boatman withdrew the curtains, and his
single passenger disembarked, and ascended the stairs of the archway.
The stranger reached the landing-place, and unfastening a golden grate,
proceeded along a gallery, and entered a beautiful saloon of white and
green marble, opening into gardens. No one was in the apartment; the
stranger threw himself upon a silver couch, placed at the side of
a fountain that rose from the centre of the chamber and fell into a
porphyry basin. A soft whisper roused the stranger from his reverie, a
soft whisper that faintly uttered the word 'Honain.' The stranger looked
up, a figure, enveloped in a veil, that touched the ground, advanced
from the gardens.
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