“There are some men, my dear nephews, who even in these circumstances would have begun bargaining for a higher price. These are men who love the making of small sums and who do not understand the enormous weight of caprice and chance in human affairs. So far from attempting to get a higher price, I expressed my gratitude and said that for my part I was quite willing to take less, but that I somewhat feared my master’s anger and could not return to him without at least fifty pieces of gold, adding that I considered ten pieces a sufficient reward for myself. At the same time I advised Abdul not to sell the saddle with the horse, nor did I omit to remind him that horses of a light colour are more easily dyed than those of a darker hue.
“At these suggestions of mine he looked upon me mournfully for a few moments and then slowly counted out sixty pieces of gold. I took a long farewell of the kindly, patient, and beautiful animal, which had borne me to this fortune in the short space of one day, and then walked forth through the city into the evening, preferring the chance of a lodging in the forest to tempting further the singular Fate that had so far befriended me.
“The weather was warm, the neighbouring wood, as I knew by experience, hospitable. There would I spend the few hours of darkness, building myself a small fire to keep off the beasts and to cherish me. Thence, I did not doubt, I could the next morning, with now so satisfactory a capital, proceed to the re-edification of my fortune.
“I reached the wooded hill which overlooked the city. I recited my third night prayers. Before building my fire and disposing myself to sleep, I looked at the outline of the walls and domes and graceful minarets against the last of the evening, and I revolved in my mind that thought which shall ever be mine on my departure from any town. Let it also be yours, my dear children, in all your travels.
“For just as when you come to a new city of a morning, before you enter it, and after having prayed God, you should muse within yourself what sums of money you may hope to lift from its inhabitants; so when you leave any city at evening, never omit (after due thanks to your Creator!) to calculate what sums you have indeed subtracted from those to whom you bid farewell.”
As the old merchant ceased it was like the ending of a strain of solemn music, the echoes of which linger and continue in the memory. The strangely moving words he had uttered stirred a profound in the depths of their young souls, and they sat with bowed heads until the horrid outrage of the Muezzin’s call murdered that sacred silence.
At the signal the lads rose and filed out on tiptoe leaving their uncle with his eyes closed and his lips murmuring in prayer.
