“Put thus, the offer, I will confess, attracted me; but I had already learned the wickedness of mankind (though not as yet, I am glad to say, my dear nephews, at my own expense), and I said that I would at least so far meet him as to take the jewels to a local merchant, invent some tale, as though they were my own, and see what sum might be offered for them. Only when I thus had some measure of their value could I honourably make an offer. I continued at some length in this strain, expressing a humble inability to judge, and the fear lest my capital might not be sufficient (which he pooh-poohed). I stipulated, for a reason you will soon perceive, that a slave of his should accompany me—if only as a matter of routine—for (said I) I was very jealous of my honour. He agreed, though he was good enough to call it a pure formality.
“I left the aged magistrate with many thanks and, accompanied by the slave, proceeded with the pearls to the jewel merchants’ quarter in the bazaar. I stopped before one of the richest and most reputed booths, and spreading the pearls before the merchant told him that I was compelled to sell these under order from authority as the end of a family dispute, to pay the dowry of my sister; that I therefore was in haste to settle and would take the least price he might choose to mention within reason. I was, said I, wholly in his hands. It was urgent for me that the bargain should be quickly completed, but before I could receive his cash I must hear the lowest figure he would name.
“While I thus spoke the slave stood respectfully behind me and listened to our conversation. The jewel merchant said that no class of merchandise was more distasteful to him than pearls; there was at this moment no market for them. It was impossible to purchase them save properly set and in regular sizes; and finally it was well known that pearls were the most unlucky of gems. It was quite impossible for him to offer more than 10,000 dinars, and even so he would doubtless be the loser by the transaction.
“When I heard this I rapidly wrote upon a slip of paper the following words:
“ ‘My Lord—The chief merchant in this city estimates your jewels at 10,000 dinars. I cannot, alas, provide that sum, and therefore I cannot honestly make an offer myself as I had hoped; if you desire to have them sold here I will faithfully execute your commission, but if you prefer that I should return them to you send me word. Meanwhile, I will still bargain here awaiting your reply.’
“I sent this note by the slave and begged him to give it to his master and to bring me an answer. The slave went off, and when I judged him to be well out of hearing I turned and said to the merchant, sighing: ‘Well, since you offer no more I must take what you offer; the slave whom you saw me despatch carried the news to my family; I burn when I think of how their scorn will mock my humiliation. I therefore said nothing true of the price. Indeed, I have set it down in that note as something much higher. But I submit, for, as I told you, I am pressed. Come, count me the money, and I will away.’
“The merchant, after I had handed over the pearls, counted me the money into yet another large leathern bag, which I shouldered, and with rapid steps bore out of the bazaar and soon out of the town itself, by a gate called the Bab-el-Jaffur, that is, the gate of innocence.
“Beyond the town walls was a long roll of dusty sloping land set here and there with dusty stunted bushes and having beyond it a high range of desert hills. A track led roughly rising across it, away from the town.
“I followed this track for one hour and then sat down (for my new fortune was heavy) and rested.
“As I thought it probable that my good old friend himself would return speedily with his slave to the bazaar, and as the complication of the affair might embroil me, I hid during the remainder of the day squeezed in a jackal’s earth beneath a bank. Before nightfall I ventured out and gazed about me, leaving my original pouch, my windfall and my big leathern bag of 10,000 dinars in the jackal’s earth while I surveyed the track.
“It was the hour I love above all others.
“The sun had just set beyond the distant ocean towards which my face was turned, and between me and which, upon the plain below—for I had come to the rise of the mountain side—lay the beautiful city I had just left. The fragrant smoke of cedarwood rose from some of its roofs as the evening fell. There was still hanging in the air the coloured dust of evening above the roads of entry, and there came faintly through the distance the cry of the muezzin.
“I was not so entranced by the natural beauty of the scene as to neglect the duty which this sound recalled. I fell immediately upon my knees and was careful to add to the accustomed prayers of that hour my heartfelt thanks for the Guidance and the Grace which had so singularly increased my fortunes in the last few hours.
“As I rose from these devotions I heard upon my right a low wailing sound and was astonished to discover there, seated
