Thereupon he sought in his wallet for something to give them, and while he was seeking they began to praise him after their manner.
“See this Abdullah!” they said. “He is the father of the poor and distressed, and is ever ready to divide all he has with us. Yallah! Bless him exceedingly! Yallah! Increase his family!”
But when Abdullah had found the money and was putting it into their hands, he was suddenly aware that instead of two beggars there were now ten or more, and these again multiplied in an extraordinary manner, so that he felt himself hemmed in on every side in a close press.
“O Allah!” he exclaimed. “Thou art witness that unless these small coins are multiplied a hundredfold, as the basket of dates by the Prophet at the trench before Medina, I shall have nothing to give these worthy persons.”
By this time the blind Sheikh of the beggars was present, and he pushed forward, pretending to rebuke his companions.
“O you greedy ones!” he cried. “How often have I told you not to be so importunate? Yet you crowd upon him like wasps upon a date, presuming upon the goodness of his heart, and when there is no more room you crowd upon each other. Forgive them, O Abdullah!” he said, addressing him directly, “for they have the appetites of jackals together with the understanding of little children. They would thrust into the dish a hand as small as a crow’s foot and withdraw it looking as big as a camel’s hoof. Their manners are also—”
“My friend,” said Abdullah, “I have given what I can. Let me therefore pass on, for my business is of importance, yet the throng is so great that I cannot move a step. Tomorrow I will distribute much alms to you all.”
“The radiance of your merciful countenance is enough for us,” replied the Sheikh of the beggars, “and even I who am blind am comforted by its rays as by those of the sun in spring, and my hunger is appeased by the honey of your incomparable eloquence—”
“My friend,” said Abdullah, interrupting him again, “I pray you to let me go forward now, for I have a very important matter in hand, though it is with difficulty that I tear myself away from your society and I would willingly listen much longer to the words of the wise.”
Then the blind man turned to the other beggars, and his hearing told him that by this time there were at least threescore in the street.
“Come, my brothers!” he cried. “Let us accompany our benefactor to the house of his friend, and afterwards we will wait for him and see that he reaches his own dwelling in safety. Surely it is not fitting that a sheikh of such great consideration should go about the streets at night without so much as an attendant carrying a lantern. Let us go with him.”
Now these last words were the signal agreed upon, and even as Abdullah began to protest that he desired no such honourable escort as the beggars offered him, one came from behind and suddenly drew a thick barley-sack over his head, so that his voice was heard no more, and he was dragged down by the throat, while the one-eyed hunchback caught him by the legs and bound his feet and four others laid hold of his hands and tied them firmly behind him. Nor had Almasta time to utter a single cry before she was bound hand and foot with her head in a sack, like her husband. Then at a signal the beggars took up the two as though they had been bales packed ready for a camel’s back, and carried them away swiftly into the darkness, towards the eastern gate where the blind man lived in a ruined house together with three or four of his most trusted companions. He also sent a messenger to his relation, the Bedouin, as had been agreed. It was already quite dark in the streets and the few persons who met the beggars did not see what they were carrying, nor ask questions of them, merely supposing that they had lingered long in the public square after evening prayers and were now returning in a body to their own quarter.
The blind man’s house was built of three rooms and a wall, standing in a square around a small court. But only one of the rooms had a roof of its own, though there was a sort of cellar under the floor of one of the others which served at once as a lodging for beggars in winter, as a storehouse for food when there was any in supply and as a place of deposit for the ancient iron chest in which the common fund of money was kept. To this vault the Sheikh of the beggars made his companions bring the two prisoners, and having set them on the floor, side by side, he proceeded to hold a council, in which the captives themselves had no part, since their heads were tied up in dusty barley-sacks and they could not speak so as to be heard.
“O my brothers!” said the blind man. “Allah has delivered the enemies of the kingdom into our hand, and it is necessary to decide what we will do with them. Let the oldest and the wisest give their opinions first, and after them the others, even to the youngest, and last of all I will speak, and let us see whether we can agree.”
“Let us kill the man and bury him, and then cast lots among us for the woman,” said one.
“No,” said the next, a man who
