She answered beseechingly, ''Tis a dream I had, O Genie; a dream of danger
to him.'
While she spake, the Genie clenched his fists and stamped so that the
palace shook and the earth under it, exclaiming, 'O abominable Kadza! a
dream is it? another dream? Wilt thou cease dreaming awhile, thou silly
woman? Know I not he that's powerful against us is in Aklis, crowned
ape, and that his spells are gone? And I was distilling drops to defy
the Sword and strengthen Shagpat from assault, yet bringest thou me from
my labour by the Putrid Sea with thy accursed dream!' Thereat, he
frowned and shot fire at her from his eyes, so that she singed, and the
room thickened with a horrible smell of burning. She feared greatly and
trembled, but he cooled himself against the air, crying presently in a
diminished voice, 'Let's hear this dream, thou foolish Kadza! 'Tis as
well to hear it. Probably Rabesqurat hath sent thee some sign from
Aklis, where she ferryeth a term. What's that saying:
"A woman's at the core of every plot man plotteth,
And like an ill-reared fruit, first at the core it rotteth."