As she waited, Mohammed continued his story: 

“And, as I tell you, O reverend one abounding in virtues, this lion which still lives near Tabariat, was formerly a strong lion, a wonderful lion, a lion among lions!  To-day, even, he can strike a camel dead with one blow of his paw, and then, plunging his fangs into the spine of the dead animal, toss it upon his shoulders with a single movement of his neck.  But unfortunately, having one day brought down a goat in the chase by simply blowing upon it the breath of his nostrils, the lion was inflated with pride and cried:  ’There is no god but God, but I am as strong as God.  Let him acknowledge it!’ Allah, who heard him, Allah, the All-powerful, said in a loud voice, ’O lion of Tabariat, try now to carry off thy prey!’ Then the lion planted his great teeth firmly in the spine of the animal, right under the ears, and attempted to throw it on his back.  Onallahi!  It was as though he had tried to lift Mount Libanus, and his right leg fell lamed to the ground.  And the voice of Allah still held him, declaring:  ’Lion, nevermore shalt thou kill a goat!’ And it has remained thus to this day:  the lion of Tabariat has still all his old-time power to carry off camels, but he can never do the slightest harm to even a new-born kid.  The goats of the flocks dance in front of him at night, deriding him to his face, and always from that moment his right leg has been stiff and lame.”

“Mohammed,” said the Rev. Mr. Feathercock contemptuously, “these are stories fit only for babies.”

“How, then!” replied Mohammed-si-Koualdia.  “Do you refuse to believe that God is able to do whatever he may wish, that the world itself is but a perpetual dream of God’s and that, in consequence, God may change this dream at will?  Are you a Christian if you deny the power of the All-powerful?”

“I am a Christian,” replied the clergyman with a trace of embarrassment; “but for a long time we have been obliged to admit, we pastors of the civilized Church of the Occident, that God would not be able, without belying himself, to change the order of things which he established when he created the universe.  We consider that faith in miracles is a superstition which we must leave to the monks of the Churches of Rome and of Russia, and also to your Mussulmans who live in ignorance of the truth.  And it is in order to teach you this truth that I have come here to your country, and at the same time to fight against the pernicious political influence exerted by these same Romish and Greek monks of whom I have just been speaking.”

“By invoking the name of Allah,” responded Mohammed with intense solemnity, “and by virtue of the collar-bone of the mighty Solomon, I can perform great miracles.  You see this turtle before us?  I shall cause it to grow each day the breadth of a finger!”

In saying these words he made a sudden movement of his foot toward Zobeide, and Zobeide promptly drew her head into her shell.