se of the Hashishiyya.

Erculio had slept on a pile of rags in a corner of the dungeon, leaving
it to the guards to make sure that d'Ucello's order was carried out and
Daoud remained awake. The guards were, as Erculio must have known they
would be, halfhearted about carrying out their mandate. They poked and
struck him with sticks at intervals, but they did not try to injure him.
Daoud was even able to sleep for brief periods between their proddings.
They let most of the candles in the dungeon go out, leaving the great
stone chamber in semidarkness.

Erculio managed to talk to him when the two guards were dozing. He held
up what looked like a large pearl.

"There is a swift-acting poison sealed inside this glass ball. When he
comes to burn your prickle off, I will slip it into your mouth. When you
feel the fire, break the ball with your teeth and swallow. It will look
as though the pain killed you. If you can manage it, swallow the glass,
too, so they do not find it in your mouth after you're dead."

So calm did Daoud's Sufi training keep him that he was able to wonder
where Erculio had got such a thing, and how the poison was sealed inside
the ball, and what kind of poison it was. He could even think calmly
about what it would feel like when the poison was killing him.

Erculio was taking a huge chance, he realized. D'Ucello might well
discover that poison had killed Daoud; the podesta was a very clever and
knowledgeable man. And if he did discover the poison, he would, of
course, reason that Erculio had done it. In the midst of his calm, Daoud
felt admiration for the little bent man's courage.

Inevitably with the passing of so many hours, the pain of the cuts and
bruises and burns he had already suffered, and the ache of lying in the
same position with his limbs stretched beyond endurance, would at times
break through the mental wall he had built up against it. Remembering
the words of Sheikh Saadi--_If pain comes despite your training, invite
it into your soul's tent as you would a welcome guest_--he allowed the
pain to wash over him. And when the first acute shock of it had passed,
he was able to restore the wall.

From time to time he would think of what was soon going to happen to
him. And it would be like a spear of ice driven into his heart. Again,
he let himself feel the terror, the anguish, the agonized wondering,
_When will he come?_ and then, when his mind was numbed by the horror of
it, cast it out