And they kept going to and fro,
and descending by the trapdoor, till they had transported into the
dwelling all that was in the ship.
After this the slaves again went on board and brought back with them
garments as rich as may be, and in the midst of them came an old old
man, of whom very little was left, for Time had dealt hardly and
harshly with him, and all that remained of him was a bone wrapped in a
rag of blue stuff, through which the winds whistled west and east.
As saith the poet of him:
Time gars me tremble. Ah, how sore the balk!
While Time in pride of strength doth ever stalk.
Time was I walked nor ever felt I tired,
Now am I tired albe' I never walk!
And the Sheikh held by the hand a youth cast in beauty's mold, all
elegance and perfect grace, so fair that his comeliness deserved to be
proverbial, for he was as a green bough or the tender young of the
roe, ravishing every heart with his loveliness and subduing every soul
with his coquetry and amorous ways. They stinted not their going, O my
lady, till all went down by the trapdoor and did not reappear for an
hour, or rather more; at the end of which time the slaves and the
old man came up without the youth and, replacing the iron plate and
carefully closing the door slab as it was before, they returned to the
ship and made sail and were lost to my sight.
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