"Thanks. I'd ask you to kiss me, but I've seen this face. By the way," said he to Pepi, at whose neck the blade of El Sareuk still pressed lightly but insistently, "can you give me back my own body?" "Only Heraj could have done that," said Pepi wanly. "Damnation. Oh, well," said the gorilla, and without more ado climbed onto the carpet and sat down. "Good-bye, all," he said. His short brow furrowed. Great fangs bared briefly in a grin of concentration. Nothing happened. "Give it t-t-time," yipped Pepi, as the Arab's sword just nudged his throat. The carpet gave a preliminary lurch, like a horse testing its muscles of an early morning, and then with a whoosh shot through the door and disappeared. From the other rooms that lay between them and the front of the house rose shouts of astonishment, as Godwin's forces observed him sail past them, clawing madly at the front edge of the rocketing carpet. At that moment Mufaddal gave a low groan, unheard by anyone there; and Heraj the senior sorcerer opened his eyes and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. CHAPTER XVII Making a test flight on the blue and red carpet in the house was tantamount to bestraddling a horse for the first time and having to jump him over a series of rivers and log falls and then gallop along a precipice edge, thought Godwin. He wished he had carried or led the thing out of doors before he got aboard. He missed the first door jamb by a fraction, canted over dangerously to skirt a startled Bedouin, aimed for the second door and saw he was too far off the floor, ducked his head just in time to escape a crack from the lintel, had the almost overpowering urge to close his eyes and let himself be buttered all over the ceiling, missed another door by a nice margin, grinned proudly, and saw that the front door was shut fast. "Open it!" he bawled, something of the timbre of the gorilla in his frantic voice. "Open it, you pygmy-brained nincompoop!" The Crusader on guard at the door flung it wide. It was an involuntary reaction, not in any way due to Godwin's command; he merely meant to dash through it himself. But carpet and gorilla slanted sidewise and flew at him, he dropped prone with a screech that four hundred Saracen foes would never have drawn from his lips, and the apparition sailed over him at thirty miles an hour, the gorilla hanging on to the edge for dear life.