As the men talked the two women were busy within their apartment at their housewifely duties. In a great brazen Jidda , Hirfa was placing mutton to be boiled for the next meal while Ateja fashioned sandals from an old bag of camel leather impregnated with the juice of the dates that it had borne upon many a rahla, and meanwhile they missed naught of the conversation that passed in the mukaad.

"We have come a long way without mishap from our own beled," Ibn Jad was remarking, "and the way has been longer because I wished not to pass through el-Habash lest we be set upon or followed by the people of that country. Now may we turn north again and enter el-Habash close to the spot where the magician foretold we should find the treasure city of Nimmr ."

"And thinkest thou to find this fabled city easily, once we are within the boundaries of el-Habash?" asked Tollog, his brother.

"Wellah, yes. It is known to the people of this far south Habash. Fejjuan, himself an Habasby, though he has never been there, heard of it as a boy. We shall take prisoners among them and, by the grace of Ullah, we shall find the means to loose their tongues and have the truth from them."

"By Ullah, I hope it does not prove like the treasure that lies upon the great rock el-Howwara in the plain of Medain Salih," said Zeyd. "An afrit guards it where it lay sealed in a stone tower and they say that should it be removed disaster would befall mankind; for men would turn upon their friends, and even upon their brothers, the sons of their fathers and mothers, and the kings of the world would give battle, one against another."

"Yea," testified Tollog, "I had it from one of the fendy Hazim that a wise Moghreby came by there in his travels and consulting the cabalistic signs in his book of magic discovered that indeed the treasure lay there."

"But none dared take it up," said Zeyd.

"Billah!" exclaimed Ibn Jad. "There be no afrit guarding the treasures of Nimmr. Naught but flesh and blood Habush that may be laid low with ball and powder. The treasure is ours for the taking."