"Bring forth the cymbals! Mohammed is welcome to any music I can make with them!" I said.
"Pay close attention to my motions and when I signal you, collect what coins you can. If any man question you, pretend to be dumb."
He led me into his tent close by, procured for me a coarse robe that was an effectual disguise and applied a pigment to my skin. When he was through with me I looked like one of his own tribe. I went forth then and mingled with the throng, listening while Mohammed told tales in Arabic.
Fascinating indeed were Mohammed's tricks. I watched in astonishment as he shaped a bundle of hay into a mound and covered the pile with water.
"By the grace of Mulai Ali, my patron saint," he said, "I give this hay to the flames and command these serpents to respect the commands of the Prophet's servant!"
With these words, he emptied a bag of snakes on the ground. They looked deadly as they wriggled about his feet and twined themselves around his body. I was told that their poison had not been removed, yet he held the head of the serpent that looked the most dangerous so close to him that its fangs almost touched his lips.
With feats of this nature, and with many tales, my new patron won his audience, and collections were easy to make. What I gathered pleased him and I had the feeling that I had for the time earned a right to his protection. I was safely housed in his tent when men came to search the oasis for me, but when they inquired of him he called down curses on them for causing the thought of a Nazarene to cross the mind of a child of the Prophet.
We departed with the caravan bound for the coast. The Moorish officer's soldiers inspected us closely, but Mohammed kept me closely engaged, and arranged my hood so that I was dimly seen by the watchers. I escaped even a challenge. We stopped at frequent oases, where Mohammed entertained and I collected.
But now, perhaps because the matter of my disguise handicapped him; perhaps because he feared punishment for harboring an escaped slave; perhaps from greed, Mohammed betrayed me. When we were a day's travel from Tripoli, we fell in with a small coast-bound caravan that had lost one of its camels and needed a beast of burden to take its place. I became that animal!
On hearing Achmet, the chief of the caravan, offer a large sum for a beast of burden, Mohammed's eyes lighted on me. "There," he said, "is a sound-bodied Nazarene slave that will do the work well. He has served my purpose and since I have saved him from being sold as a slave in the interior, he should not carp at my selling him to you. Take the Christian dog, and may you lead him to become a true follower of Mohammed!"