Read "The Mercy of Allah" by Hilaire Belloc online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
When Mahmoud's nephews reappeared before him at the hour of public / executions it was in a certain weariness of spirit; for though they / knew that the fortunes of their uncle must subsequently be recovered / in the narrative (since there he was before them, rolling, or, as the / phrase went in Bagdad, "dripping" with it) yet the blows of fate had / fallen upon him with such violence in the recent tale that something / of his then despair had entered their own souls. They sat down / therefore with hanging heads to listen, as they feared, to little / better than the further advance of intolerable things.
The old man began in a subdued voice of lamentable recollection: