I looked about me and found myself in a vast cave full of dead
bodies that exhaled a fulsome and loathsome smell, and the air was
heavy with the groans of the dying. Thereupon I fell to blaming myself
for what I had done, saying: "By Allah, I deserve all that hath
befallen me and all that shall befall me! What curse was upon me to
take a wife in this city? There is no Majesty and there is no Might
save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! As often as I say I have
escaped from one calamity, I fall into a worse. By Allah, this is an
abominable death to die! Would Heaven I had died a decent death and
been washed and shrouded like a man and a Moslem. Would I had been
drowned at sea, or perished in the mountains! It were better than to
die this miserable death!" And on such wise I kept blaming my own
folly and greed of gain in that black hole, knowing not night from
day, and I ceased not to ban the Foul Fiend and to bless the
Almighty Friend. Then I threw myself down on the bones of the dead and
lay there, imploring Allah's help, and in the violence of my despair
invoking death, which came not to me, till the fire of hunger burned
my stomach and thirst set my throat aflame, when I sat up and
feeling for the bread, ate a morsel and upon it swallowed a mouthful
of water.
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