Then my manhood came back to me.

"When did the King tell you to touch me, you fatted swine?" I roared,
and turning, since I could not reach him with my bound hands, kicked
him in the body with all my strength, so that he fell down, writhing
and screaming with agony. Indeed, had not the executioners leapt upon
me, I would have trampled the life out of him where he lay. But they
held me fast and presently, after he had been sick, Houman recovered
enough to come forward leaning on the shoulders of two guards. Only
now he mocked me no more.

We reached a quay just as the sun was setting. There in charge of a
one-eyed black slave, a little square-ended boat floated at the
river's edge, while on the quay itself lay a similar but somewhat
shorter boat, bottom uppermost. Now the hunters whom I had won in the
wager, with many glances of compassion, for they were brave men and
knew that it was I who had saved their lives, placed the bags of gold
in the bottom of the floating boat, and on the top of these a mattress
stuffed with straw. Then the girdle of rose-hued pearls was made fast
about my middle, my hands were untied, I was seized by the
executioners and laid on my back on the mattress, and my wrists and
ankles were fixed by cords to iron rings that were screwed to the
thwarts of the boat. After this the other, shorter boat was laid over
me in such a manner that it did not touch me, leaving my head, my
hands and my feet exposed as the eunuch had said.

While this wicked work was going forward Bes sat on the quay,
watching, till presently, after I had been made fast and covered up,
he burst into shouts of laughter, clapped his hands and began to dance
about as though with joy, till the eunuch, who had now recovered