So miserable was he that it never occurred to him that he might be in any danger himself. He paid no attention when all the noises in the Bazaar stopped, like birds when a hunter enters a wood. He did not really notice the heavy marching of feet or the regular clank-clank-clank of mercenary armor that went with it. When someone barked “Halt!” outside his booth, he did not even turn his head. But he did turn around when the curtains of the booth were torn down. He was sluggishly surprised. He blinked his swollen eyes against the powerful sunlight and wondered vaguely what a troop of northern soldiers was doing coming in here.

“That’s him,” said someone in civilian clothes, who might have been Hakim, and then faded prudently away before Abdullah’s eyes could focus on him.

“You!” snapped the squad leader. “Out. With us.”

“What?” said Abdullah.

“Fetch him,” said the leader.

Abdullah was bewildered. He protested feebly when they dragged him to his feet and twisted his arms to make him walk. He went on protesting as they marched him at the double—clank-clank, clank-clank—out of the Bazaar and into the West Quarter. Before long he was protesting very strongly indeed. “What is this?” he panted. “I demand … as a citizen … where we are … going!”

“Shut up. You’ll see,” they answered. They were too fit to pant.

A short while after, they ran Abdullah in under a massive gate made of blocks of stone that glared white in the sun, into a blazing courtyard, where they spent five minutes outside an ovenlike smithy loading Abdullah with chains. He protested even more. “What is this for? Where is this? I demand to know!”

“Shut up!” said the squad leader. He remarked to his second-in-command in his barbarous northern accent, “They always winge so, these Zanzibbeys. Got no notion of dignity.”

While the squad leader was saying this, the smith—who was from Zanzib, too—murmured to Abdullah, “The Sultan wants you. I don’t think much of your chances, either. Last one I chained like this got crucified.”

“But I haven’t done anyth—” protested Abdullah.

“SHUT UP!” screamed the squad leader. “Finished, smith? Right. On the double!” And they ran Abdullah off again, across the glaring yard and into the large building beyond.

Abdullah would have said it was impossible even to walk in those chains. They were so heavy. But it is wonderful what you can do if a party of grim-faced soldiers is quite set on making you do it. He ran, clank-chankle, clank-chankle, clash, until at last, with an exhausted jingle, he arrived at the foot of a high raised seat made of cool blue and gold tiles and piled with cushions. There the soldiers all went down on one knee, in a distant, decorous way, as northern soldiers did to the person who was paying them.

“Present prisoner Abdullah, m’lord Sultan,” the squad leader said.