The other protested, called Baal and Ashtaroth to witness that his claim was just; said that he had trusted for so long and for so much, that if his accounts were not now allowed, he would be ruined. He had arrived from Sidon some days before, expressly for the purpose of trying to get a settlement, but had till now been unable to get even an interview with the dealer, who was always too busy to see him, but had at last agreed to have his agent meet him at the khan. This was the meeting. The Phenician had at first quietly represented the hardships of his case with some hope of softening the agent, but, growing desperate, he hotly rose from his seat and exclaimed in a voice that was almost a wail:
“I shall be undone,—quite undone! Have you no mercy?”
“Not much,” said the other, “for some people.”
“Thou flint! Before all the gods my claim is just. What shall I do? My children will starve.”
“Let them. The fewer such brats the better. Business is business. Take what I offer or nothing. You have only yourself to blame; you shouldn’t cheat so.”
“Cheat!” exclaimed the Phenician in a transport of wrath that for the moment drank up his tears like a hot blast from the desert. “Cheat! you Cretan rascal! You are a pretty fellow to advise against cheating; you who, I verily believe, never did anything else; nor your fathers either, for that matter. Who does not know what the honesty of a Cretan is worth?”
By this time many had gathered around. Turning to them, the Phenician besought their help to make his debtor do him justice.
“Why not go to the judge?” said a by-stander.
“Ah, my friend, I have been imprudent. I cannot prove that my goods were all right; for I was so careless that I took it for granted that I was dealing with an honest man, and so neglected to have them examined and registered at Sidon. Besides, if I had done this, how could I know but that the packages had been tampered with on their way here? I could not swear that they came into this man’s hands in as good condition as they were when they left mine. But he could swear to anything. Why shouldn’t he? He told me a little while ago, while we were opening our conference with some general talk, that he did not believe in any god or hereafter; in short, that he had no religion of any sort. What is to keep such a man from wronging his neighbor out of his dues when it can be done safely?”
“This man speaks truth,” said a substantial looking man hard by; “for, as I was passing here some time ago, I overheard this atheist sneering at all religion. Said I to myself, that man is a rogue. Is cheating too bad a thing for such a fellow to do? Hassan thinks not.”