"Down, my son; down, my Baboon; down on to thy hands and knees. We enter
the presence of _She_, and, if thou art not humble, of a surety she will
blast thee where thou standest."

I halted, and felt scared. Indeed, my knees began to give way of their
own mere motion; but reflection came to my aid. I was an Englishman,
and why, I asked myself, should I creep into the presence of some savage
woman as though I were a monkey in fact as well as in name? I would not
and could not do it, that is, unless I was absolutely sure that my life
or comfort depended upon it. If once I began to creep upon my knees I
should always have to do so, and it would be a patent acknowledgment of
inferiority. So, fortified by an insular prejudice against "kootooing,"
which has, like most of our so-called prejudices, a good deal of common
sense to recommend it, I marched in boldly after Billali. I found myself
in another apartment, considerably smaller than the anteroom, of which
the walls were entirely hung with rich-looking curtains of the same make
as those over the door, the work, as I subsequently discovered, of the
mutes who sat in the antechamber and wove them in strips, which were
afterwards sewn together. Also, here and there about the room, were
settees of a beautiful black wood of the ebony tribe, inlaid with ivory,
and all over the floor were other tapestries, or rather rugs. At the top
end of this apartment was what appeared to be a recess, also draped with
curtains, through which shone rays of light. There was nobody in the
place except ourselves.

Painfully and slowly old Billali crept up the length of the cave, and
with the most dignified stride that I could command I followed after
him. But I felt that it was more or less of a failure. To begin with, it
is not possible to look dignified when you are following in the wake
of an old man writhing along on his stomach like a snake, and then,