“My relief was beyond words. I had seen myself leaving my merchandise unsold or sacrificing it at a ruinous nothing. That which Yusouff offered me was the difference between despair and a shred of hope, and though the loss was severe it left me at least with some capital for a further venture.
“Great men have a sort of simplicity in their dealings. Hardly had Yusouff discovered my gratitude and my immediate acceptance of his gift (for I could call it by no other name), than the princely fellow clapped his hands, sent for his treasurer, and had counted to me upon the spot a hundred pieces of gold. I gave him my writing of delivery, which he handed to another slave with a few words in a low voice. Then he continued to talk to me, for he was determined to detain me far into the night. Indeed it was near dawn before he whom I will now call my friend, and to whom I felt bound for life by the greatest ties of grateful affection, allowed me to pass his gates and to return to my hostelry.
“There I found that my panniers had already been removed and their contents conveyed to the purchaser’s warehouse. I admired the promptitude in business which so often accompanies a generous heart.
“With the early hours of the next day, before the sun had yet acquired too great power, I strolled through the bazaar, not so much cast down at the thought of my loss as cheered by the recollection that I possessed, after all, one hundred good pieces of solid gold.
“With a malicious pleasure I approached the stall of a fruit-seller. Putting down a small copper coin I begged him for a handful of dates.
“ ‘I need not full measure,’ said I, ‘only a handful to munch as I go along.’ For I knew that in the state of the market my penny might have purchased a gallon. I desired to show a neglect for small sums.
“To my surprise the fruit-seller stared at me and said:
“ ‘Dates? From what country do you come that you ask for dates in our town?’
“ ‘Why!’ said I, ‘is there not a glut of these? I am told the place is overflowing with them.’
“ ‘There is One-who-judges,’ said the fruit-seller resignedly. ‘But as for dates—you will not find one in the whole town; our last month’s arrival was pillaged by robbers in the hills. If you will but procure me a single gallon I will readily give in return two pieces of gold, so great is the demand. Of supply there is none whatever, nor, alas! any prospect of such.’
“I was so bewildered that I hardly know what next I said, but at any rate, in reply to it, my new acquaintance told me that there were, indeed, suspected to be certain dates in the possession of Yusouff-the-Triumphant, ‘who’ (he remarked aside) ‘has all the luck.’ He next said it was also rumoured that Yusouff’s slaves had been seen in the last hours of the night going in procession with a great number of panniers laden on mules towards Yusouff’s warehouse, and those who brought the news swore that they could smell the smell of dates.
“ ‘But beyond that smell,’ he ended, ‘we have had nothing of dates in the place for three weeks. And if you understood our habit in the matter of food you would feel for us!’
“I have already described to you, my dear nephews, my admiration for Yusouff-the-Triumphant. Long before I had seen him his distant reputation had inflamed me. My brief acquaintance with him had exalted that feeling to what I had thought the highest pitch. But now it passed all bounds. A man so subtle in negotiations! So ready in affairs! So rapid and conclusive in a bargain! With so marvellous a command of feature and of tone! A man (in a word) so infinitely my superior in that profession of commerce to which Allah calls all great souls and in which I also was engaged! Such a man I had never thought to meet! Nay—I had never thought such a one to exist upon this poor earth. I could have kissed the ground upon which he walked or have borne upon me forever, as a relic, some thread of his purse.
“ ‘Here,’ I exclaimed, ‘is the true merchant! Here is the model of all that a man of affairs should be! Oh! Mahmoud, you thought yourself something in your trade, but you have met your master, and more than your master! You have met one who is to you as the most holy of saintly men is to the basest of the Kafir. There is none on earth like him. Allah has raised him beyond all others.
“But it is not enough, my dear nephews,” continued the old man, whose eyes were now filled with a sort of sacred light, “it is not enough to admire those who set us great examples. We should also imitate them. I determined after so rare an experience to follow as best I might in the footsteps of one who had shown himself raised high above the level of mortality.
“ ‘Him,’ said I to myself, ‘him will I copy! He shall be my guide! His manner and his tone, on that unforgettable evening, shall be my exact model! Then perhaps in time I shall do as he has done and accumulate so great a store of money as shall put me among the greatest of mankind.’
“I hastened to summon my slaves. I paid my score for the stabling, and as I looked at my small capital and surveyed my beasts I hesitated what I should do. Yusouff-the-Triumphant had, by God’s special grace overshadowing him, got hold of my substance. Nothing was left me but the camels. In such a strait I abandoned the thought