The King of Karasme stamped thrice
on the platform of his throne, and exclaimed with great fire, 'By my
beard, ye have deceived me! The dog has confessed nothing!'
All the councillors and chief captains, and the Mullahs, and the
Imams, and the Cadis, and the principal personages of the city were
in consternation. They immediately consulted together, and, after much
disputation, agreed that, before they proceeded to extremities, it was
expedient to prove what the prisoner would not confess. A venerable
Sheikh, clothed in flowing robes of green, with a long white beard,
and a turban like the tower of Babel, then rose. His sacred reputation
procured silence while he himself delivered a long prayer, supplicating
Allah and the Prophet to confound all blaspheming Jews and Giaours, and
to pour forth words of truth from the mouths of religious men. And
then the venerable Sheikh summoned all witnesses against David Alroy.
Immediately advanced Kisloch the Kourd, to whom, being placed in an
eminent position, the Cadi of Bagdad drawing forth a scroll from his
velvet bag, read a deposition, wherein the worthy Kisloch stated that he
first became acquainted with the prisoner, David Alroy, in some ruins in
the desert, the haunt of banditti, of whom Alroy was the chief; that
he, Kisloch, was a reputable merchant, and that his caravan had been
plundered by these robbers, and he himself captured; that, on the second
night of his imprisonment, Alroy appeared to him in the likeness of a
lion, and on the third, of a bull with fiery eyes; that he was in the
habit of constantly transforming himself; that he frequently raised
spirits; that, at length, on one terrible night, Eblis himself came in
great procession, and presented Alroy with the sceptre of Solomon Ben
Daoud; and that the next day Alroy raised his standard, and soon after
massacred Hassan Subah and his Seljuks, by the visible aid of many
terrible demons.
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