We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
BY THE BEARD OF THE PROPHET, I SWEAR The men fell on their faces, beat- ing their heads upon the mosaic pave- ment stones. Nelia arose and stood erect by the dead King. She raised her arms to Heaven. "Hear me, 0 Allah!" she cried very terribly. "By the beard of the prophet, I swear that Abdullah Dhu shall pay with his life for the life of my sire, and the red blood of his heart shall wash out the black insult of his lips." The year warmed into beauty as a maid turns to a woman, and even the heavens flowered in pale tints of rose and amethyst. The days were drowsy with fierce lights and glamor, and the nights passionate with perfume from myriad gardens abloom. In the lanes of the city nodded the merchants be- neath their awnings, their wares of rugs and lacquer, of tobacco and fruit unsold. The shadows of the beggar- women were sharp on the cobbles, and the noonday voice of the muezzin floating from his tower—Allah be 63 blessed!—rose languidly to the Gates of Paradise. In the palace, Princess Nelia sat alone. She had beautiful raiment and jewels like lustrous eyes, ebony slaves, silken cushions for her soft body, rosewater and myrrh for her bath, and dainties of many kinds upon her table, and—she sat alone. Beyond the latticed casement, Life went by; straining her ears, she could hear it panting, breathing, laughing, weeping, but only echoes like the sad shadows of ghosts crept in to her. All day she sat silent, brooding, but at night she dreamed. And her dream was wonderful. The desert—the vague, far places misty with un- imagined wonders — a lonely date- palm, black against the burning desert moon—a strange, subtle scent among the roses; the odor of vastness, ad- venture, and the sound of feet com- ing swiftly across the creaking sand. Beyond that she had never dreamed. One night, waking, the Princess Nelia thought she heard a voice cry out to her at the breaking of her