' So the black
carried him out at another door and raising a flag in the floor,
discovered a flight of twenty steps leading to a chamber under
the earth, into which he descended with him and laying his
feet in irons, committed him to the slave-girl and went away.
Meanwhile, the old men said to one another, 'When the day of
the Festival of the Fire comes, we will sacrifice him on the
mountain, as a propitiatory offering to the Fire.' Presently the
damsel went down to him and beat him grievously, till the blood
streamed from his sides and he fainted away; after which she set
at his head a cake of bread and a cruse of brackish water and
went away and left him. In the middle of the night, he revived
and found himself bound and sore with beating: so he wept
bitterly and recalling his former estate of ease and honour and
lordship and dominion, groaned and lamented and repeated the
following verses:
Halt by the ruins of the house and question of our fate Nor think
we sojourn in the land, as in our first estate.
Fortune, the sunderer, hath wrought the severance of our loves;
Yet doth our enemies' despite against us nought abate.
A filthy cockatrice is set to torture me with whips, Whose breast
against me is fulfilled with rancour and with hate.
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