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They fared on diligently, now passing through inhabited countries and now ruins and anon traversing frightful deserts and thirsty wastes and anon mountains that rose high into the air; nor did they leave journeying a whole year’s space, till, one morning, when the day broke, after they had travelled all night, the Sheikh found himself in a land he knew not and said, ‘There is no power and no virtue save in God the Most High, the Supreme!’ Quoth the Amir, ‘What is to do, O Sheikh?’ And he answered, saying, ‘By the Lord of the Kaabeh, we have wandered from our road!’ ‘How cometh that?’ asked Mousa, and Abdussemed replied, ‘The stars were obscured and I could not guide myself by them.’ ‘Where are we now?’ said the Amir, and the Sheikh, ‘I know not; for I never set eyes on this land till now.’ Quoth Mousa, ‘Guide us back to the place where we went astray;’ but the other said, ‘I know it no more.’ Then said Mousa, ‘Let us push on; it may be God will guide us to it or direct us aright of His power.’ So they fared on till the hour of noonday prayer, when they came to a fair and wide champaign, level as it were the sea in a calm, and anon there appeared to them, in the distance, some great thing, high and black, in whose midst was as it were smoke rising to the confines of the sky. They made for this and stayed not in their course, till they drew near thereto, when, behold, it was a high castle, firm of fashion and great and gruesome as it were a lofty mountain, builded all of black stone, with frowning battlements and a door of gleaming China steel, that dazzled the eyes and dazed the wit. Round about it were a thousand steps and in its midst was a dome of lead, a thousand cubits high, which appeared afar off as it were smoke.
When the Amir saw this, he marvelled thereat exceedingly and how this place was void of inhabitants; and the Sheikh, after he had certified himself thereof said, ‘There
