whence they come. But none of the chief men found anything to say at first, so that Khaled sat in silence a long time, waiting for some one to speak. He therefore turned to the one nearest to him, and addressed him.
'Have you heard this tale?' he inquired. 'And if you have heard it do you believe it?'
'I think, indeed, that I have heard something of the kind,' answered the man. 'But it was as the chattering of an uncertain vision in a dream, which rings in the ears for a moment while it is yet dark in the morning, but is forgotten when the sun rises. By the instrumentality of a just mind Allah caused that which entered at one ear to run out from the other as the rinsing of a water-skin.'
'Good,' answered Khaled. 'Yet it is not well to rinse the brains with falsehoods. And you?' he inquired, turning to the next. 'Have you heard it also?'
'Just lord, I have heard,' replied this one. 'But if I have believed, may my head be shaved with a red-hot razor having a jagged edge.'
'This is well,' Khaled said, and he questioned a third.
'O Khaled!' cried the man. 'Is the milk sour, because the slave has imagined a lie saying, "I will say it is bad and then it will be given to me to drink"?
