“While I was revolving in my mind how best I might obtain this leisure there came to me my temptation. For a traveller arriving in the city of the bridge let it be known to the merchants of the place that the king of an island called Izmar, one day’s sail from the coast (a kingdom renowned throughout Asia for its fidelity to the Prophet, the antiquity of its customs, the solidity of its institutions), required a loan.
“ ‘For what purpose?’ I asked him.
“ ‘I know not,’ he answered, ‘but I think it is in order to pay back another loan which he contracted some years ago in the effort to pay another loan which his father had contracted when a few years previously he had been compelled to repay an earlier loan.’
“I admired the scrupulous anxiety of this monarch and was the more confirmed in the project that was forming in my mind. That very night I bade farewell, not without grief, to the city of the bridge. I sold my slaves and my house at some loss (such was my infatuation!) and before it was light started out upon a good horse, carrying with me my million dinars reduced to one hundred thousand pieces of gold which, in this form, could easily be carried upon a few pack animals that followed me with their drivers.
“My passage of the sea was easy. I saw, at the rising of the sun, fine mountains against the south and very soon I discerned at their base on the shore, the walls, the piers, the minarets of a great city, its flanks upon the edges of the sea. So did I land under a good augury.
“Everything in the place, as I passed through it, smiled at my project. The wealth of the great houses, the busy commerce of the streets, the port quite filled with shipping from every place, the sounds of strange tongues (men not only from all Islam, but Nazarenes also, and Kafir, and merchants of China), the excellent order everywhere about, all these promised me the security which I desired.
“I put on my best raiment, finely fringed, and all my jewels and presented myself to the port-master as upon a matter of state business, handing him at the same time, in a lofty manner, a roll which I begged to have delivered to the controllers of the treasury. The master of the port treated me with the reverence my wealth deserved. I reposed for an hour in the court of his house, resting to the pleasant trickle of a fountain and waiting the pleasure of the authorities. At the end of that time a dozen horsemen magnificently mounted and bearing the insignia of the king formed before the porch of my host. Their commander set foot to the ground and begged me with a very low salaam to mount and ride. It would be his privilege, he said, to hold my bridle.
“It was my design to maintain my state, and thus, in great pomp, was I led through the busy streets till I came to a vast archway all emblazoned with holy texts. Passing through this, I came into a more magnificent court than I had thought men could have built in this world. In deed, the folk had made stories of it that it was not of human handicraft, but that its delicate piers and alabaster columns and lovely arches, lighter and lighter as they rose to heaven, had sprung up in a moment at the command of spirits in the days of Soleiman, from whom the monarchs of this happy island claimed descent.
“My advent was greeted with a flourish of trumpets as though I were some sort of ambassador, such an effect had my robes and jewels and letter produced, and, without delay, I was conducted by servants of the palace into the presence of the council.
“The morning was already far advanced, the heat increasing, but the apartment in which I found myself (which was ablaze with the most costly tiles and hangings of the Indies) was very cool; and again the pleasant sound of water plashing from a scented fountain refreshed the air.
“Before the throne stood, in respectful order, the twelve councillors of the king; and he himself, upon a marble throne, exquisite in workmanship and venerable with age, sat: a young man of a dreamy, melancholy, but pleasing countenance, who bowed his head very slightly at my approach, smiled gently as he did so and welcomed me. Such was the king. I in my turn cast myself down before him with a full obeisance until he bade me rise.
“Our business was not long in concluding. The grand vizier, who stepped up and stood on the right hand of the throne, put me certain questions—Whether I had my treasure with me? Whether I could produce it by such a date? And so forth. I satisfied him by signalling to my attendants with their burdens. The packages were opened before the eyes of the council and at that sitting all was arranged. For the terms which I proposed were discovered suitable enough. I have told you, my dear nephews (and I do confess it again to my shame), that desire for ease had now taken place in my mind, whereas further gain should have occupied it. I very modestly asked for no more than five dinars yearly on the hundred, I told the council and His Majesty that for the million dinars which could here be counted I should ask annually but fifty thousand for revenue, and that paid on such dates as they thought fit.
“All nodded gravely; the king gently complimented me upon my public spirit, for now (as he was good enough to say) he regarded me as a subject.
“He looked round among his councillors as though seeking a suggestion, when one of them, Tarib by name (whom I distinguished by his fine intelligent face and felt drawn towards already), said in
