TRAGEDY The sun was sinking down over the sea, the mountain wall with all its clefts and promontories wore a cloak of many colours, when we saw before us on a rock a ruined tower.

We were looking for some human habitation where we might get food and shelter for the night; but we should have passed by that building, taking it to be deserted, had not we espied a woman's figure sitting out before it in the evening light.
Experience of late had taught us to shun villages, belonging thereabouts to a peculiar sect, whose members made a virtue of inhospitality.

At noon that day, when wishing to buy food, we had been met with such amazing insults that Rashid, my henchman, had not yet recovered from his indignation, and still brooded on revenge.

On seeing that the ruined tower had occupants, he said: 'If these refuse us, we will force an entrance mercilessly; for see, they dwell alone, with none to help them.' He rode before me towards the tower, with shoulders squared and whip upraised.
It surprised me that the woman sitting out before the door appeared indifferent to his approach, until, upon a closer view, I saw that she was old and blind.

She must, I thought, be deaf as well, since she had failed to move at sound of hoof beats; which sound brought out an aged man, who shattered Rashid's plan of vengeance by exclaiming: 'Itfaddalu! (Perform a kindness!' that is, 'Enter!').
'It is thou who doest kindness,' I replied, by rote.