"'Although I am a merchant,' said he, 'I don't measure a man with a cloth cubit; come to-morrow in your own dress and I'll show you more, that you have not seen. It is a little at a time, that the sheep gets into the stew-pan.'
"I found that out in time, and by degrees I got accustomed to that dress, and a dozen others, so that none could tell that I had not been born in them.
"I'll tell you another time how I escaped from the town of Teradant with the Kaïd's horse. But to go back to the merchant, I went the next day dressed as I am now.
"'God be praised, Sheik Ayoub!' said he, 'now you are a true son of the Desert, we shall be better friends.' (The slipper-counter did not stop me this time.)
"He brought me to a sofa, and we ate and drank, and praised God; and were as if we had been brought up in the same tent."
"And the pig! you did not eat that?" said Yusuf, laughing.
"God forbid!" said Ayoub, spitting on the ground. "I took an oath of him before eating that there was none in the food; besides he had a Moslem for a cook, and you know he would not touch it. Afterwards, he took me on board his ship, and showed me wonderful things, clocks, and watches, and guns without flints that never missed; matches to light without fire, pictures and astrolabes, and all sorts of wonderful things, till I got giddy with the motion of the ship, and we landed in a boat; I used to go to his house every day, and when I had sold my ostrich-feathers and gum from Soudan, and my camels were rested, and I was about to depart, I thought he would have shed tears; he gave me presents of gunpowder, and a cloth dress of blue, and fine tea, and this pair of pistols; and then he rode on the way with me, two hours' journey. Then he said, 'God be with thee, oh, my brother! and bring thee to thy tents in peace. And now, I beseech thee, if peradventure any of my countrymen should be shipwrecked on the Desert, or fall into the hands of thy people, that thou wilt be kind to them, and befriend them for my sake.' I promised by the bread and salt that was between us, and we parted, and both went on our way sorrowful. How often I remember him, and pray that his house may be prosperous, and that he may be enlightened!"
Here Ayoub rested his chin in his hand in a fit of abstraction, and to recover his breath.
"Poor fellow!" he muttered, "yes, God is great. The English are good, the English are to be trusted; are they not sons of Sultans, oh, why do they eat pig? But now I remember, my friend, the merchant told me he never ate pig, and his cook a Moslem, I don't believe he ever did eat pig, Al hamdo l'Illah, I am sure the friend of Sheik Ayoub never ate pig! Alla Illah!"