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The Kizlar-Aga returned with the news to Adsalis and the White Prince. Even the pricking of the Koran had gone contrary to their plans. "Go and remind the Sultan," said Adsalis, "that he cannot go to the wars without the surem of victory;" and for the second time the Kizlar-Aga departed to execute the commands of the Sultana.
The surem, by the way, is a holy supplication which it is usual for the chief Imam to recite in the mosques before the Padishah goes personally to battle, praying that Allah will bless his arms with victory. Now, because time was pressing, it was necessary to recite this prayer in the chapel of the Seraglio instead of in the mosque of St. Sophia.
"Because I would rather sleep in a pit into which a tiger has fallen, I would rather sleep in the lair of a hippopotamus, I would rather sleep in a canoe guarded by alligators and crocodiles, I would rather spend a night in a cellar full of scorpions and scolopendras, or in the Tower of Surem, which is haunted by the accursed Jinns, than pass a single night in the same room with this slave-girl."
The hills of Nora are seen about ten miles east; to the south are the mountains of Surem, distant about twenty-five miles, while to the westward appear the tops of the hills of Aushin, in Zeg Zeg, over which the route had passed. Small towns and villages are scattered over the plain, and herds of fine white cattle were seen grazing on the fallow ground.
Ispirizade accordingly began to intone the surem, but he spun it out so long and made such a business of it, that it seemed as if he were bent on wasting time purposely. By the time the devotion was over every clock in the Seraglio had struck twelve.
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