“There,” said the old man, “see how the fellow’s eye sparkles. Falernian is the doctor, after all. I have had no other those forty years. For hard knocks, hard watches, and hard weather, there is nothing like the true juice of the vine. Try it again, Arab.”
I declined the offer in civil terms.
“There,” said he, “it has made the man eloquent. By Hercules, it would make his mare speak. And now that I look at her, she is as prettily made a creature as I have seen in Syria; her nose would fit in a drinking-cup. What is her price, at a word?”
I answered that “she was not to be sold.”
“Well, well, say no more about it,” replied the jovial old man; “I know you Arabs make as much of a mare as of a child, and I never meddle in family affairs.”
A haughty-looking tribune, covered with embroidery and the other coxcombry of the court soldier, spurred his charger between us and uttered with a sneer:
“What, captain, by Venus and all the Graces! giving this beggar a lecture in philosophy or a lesson in politeness? If you will not have the mare, I will. Dismount, slave!”
The officers gathered to the front, to see the progress of the affair. I sat silent.
“Slave! do you hear? Dismount! You will lose nothing, for you will steal another in the first field you come to.”
“I know but one race of robbers in Judea,” replied I.