Sid thumped the floor most furiously with the stump of it, whereupon she poured liquid into a phial, threw it into his face, and he stood up once more a man,—­Sid Norman, lost and saved by a woman, his eyes beaming one moment with the tenderest gratitude, but on the next flashing with the most deadly revenge.  Heaven and hell, the one with its joyous sunshine, the other with its lurid lights, appeared to struggle and mix up their flashes on Sid Norman’s countenance, till gratitude, that rarest grace, was quenched, and hell triumphed.

’Than all the nectar ever served in golden cups and brewed by houries in Mahomet’s paradise, revenge is sweeter,’ he murmured to himself.

‘Stay,’ said Xarifa, who divined his thoughts; ’you will transform yourself back again.  There will be no transmigration of soul for you, if you are lost by your own sorcery.  Let dogs delight to bark and bite.’

‘Hold your tongue, Xarifa,’ said the mother, who was not so amiable.  ’The man shall have revenge.  Since he has trotted about so long on all fours, he must be paid for it.  It is not revenge, it is sheer justice.’

‘True as the Koran,’ exclaimed Sid Norman, who was becoming infatuate again, and would have fallen down at the knees of this new charmer and worshiped her.  The fact is, that he was too easily transformed, and submitted too quickly to the latest magic; otherwise he would have always walked erect, instead of wearing fur on his back, and a tail at the end of it.  A coat of tar and feathers would have been a mere circumstance compared with such an indignity.  Well, it was the fault, perhaps it should rather be called the misfortune, of character.

‘Sidi Norman,’ said the lady, fixing upon him an amorous glance, ’you shall not only have revenge, but the richest kind of it.  You have a bone to pick with your wife.  She was brought up in the same school of magic that I was, hence I hate her.  She has the secret of the same rouge, and concocts the same potions and love-filters; but she shall smart for it.  Excellent man! injured husband!  Monopolize to yourself all the whip-cords of Bagdad.’

Sid Norman kneeled and kissed her hand.  Xarifa looked up from her embroidery and frowned.

The benefactress withdrew to consult her books, but returned presently.

‘Your wife,’ she said, ’has gone out shopping, also to leave some cards, to fulfil an engagement with the French minister, and to engage a band of music for an entertainment at which Prince Schearazade is expected to be present.  Wait patiently for her return, then confront her boldly, upbraid her, toss this liquor in her eyes, and then you shall see what you shall see.’

Sid Norman went to his late home, which was in the West End, the Fifth Avenue of Bagdad.  He opened the door, but silence prevailed.  Costly silks, and many extravagant and superfluous things, lay strewn about.  He sat down in a rocking-chair and gazed at a full-length portrait of the Haroun Alraschid.