The Throne of Solomon
We dismounted and I lay under the walnut trees in die grass.
Here, too, as at Sitt Zeinabar, I found myself under female
jurisdiction, for the squire of Shahrak is a woman, though
possibly not a saint. One of the villagers soon came to ask
me to call on her; but this I was unable to do, and lay with
closed eyes while the hill-women gathered round, their bright
clothes and air of prosperity noticeable in comparison to the
poverty outside the valley, a thing I remembered observing
the year before. They were full of pity, and sat fanning the
flies from my face, while a young girl, seizing my head in her
two palms, pressed the temples gently and firmly, with a
slowly increasing pressure, amazingly restful, that seemed to
transfer her youthful strength to me.
We left again at three-thirty, hoping to reach the head of
the valley and 'Aziz my guide before nightfall, in a district
free of mosquitoes. It was not to be, however. The hot
sandstone reaches were almost unbearable in the afternoon. I
was tortured with thirst. Water seemed to draw me as if I
were bewitched: I thought of Ulysses and the Sirens: it was all
I could do not to slide down and lie in the streams as we waded
through them. Towards five o'clock we saw the trees of the
village of Shutur Khan appearing round a bend, and I decided
to stop there with my friends of last year, and go no farther
that night.
The first man to greet us was the owner of a little melon
patch outside the village. From his small platform, a thing
perched oa four poles to be out of reach of mosquitoes (a fond
idea), he came running to welcome us.
They were all expecting me, said he. We turned the corner,
and saw the Assassin fortress, the Rock of Alamut, in the sun-
set, shining from its northern valley, and the Squire of Shutur
Khan, owner of the Rock, standing with all his family to greet
me on his doorstep.
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