“‘Nay, then,’ said Hassan. ‘I will confess that I found this purse on the Square last week, and know not who its owner may be.’
“‘The Square,’ said Kibosh, ‘has been closed for the past ten days by order of the Caliph, as thou dost forget; and neither could any man enter it to lose or to find a purse. Hassan, thou art a prevaricator; and I must denounce thee to the Cadi as a thief unless—’
“‘Unless what, good neighbor Kibosh?’ cried Hassan, in terror. ‘Surely, thou wouldst not denounce and ruin thine old friend!’
“‘Nay,’ said Kibosh; ‘but I would first know how thou camest into possession of so vast a sum of money, and next I would ask thee for a loan of, say, one-half thereof.’
“Hassan thereupon, being in terror of his life, confided to Kibosh that he had become acquainted with a State Secret to divulge which would be disastrous, while so long as it remained unspoken it was a source of liberal revenue to him.
“As soon as Kibosh heard this, he said, ‘O Hassan, it is now some seventeen years, or maybe eighteen, that I have known thee and thy good wife, Ayesha, and thy father-in-law, Cassim, not to mention thy son Karib and thy daughter—’”
“Perish Kibosh and Hassan and all their tribe!” shrieked the Pasha, leaping to his feet. “Gehenna be their portion and thine, thou babbling impostor! What hath all this to do with me?”
“What hath it to do with thee?” answered the astrologer. “Much, very much, with thee and thine, and with the people of Ubikwi, and the people of Kopaul, and the people of Nhulpar, when they learn that the secret known to the dead Hassan (for he died very suddenly that same day) and confided to Kibosh (also an unhappy victim of Azrael’s visitation) is now my secret. Dost wish to hear it? Or would your Highness prefer that I tell it in the market-place, that the child thou palmest off on the world as thy ‘son’ is really—”
Muley Mustapha was a meek man. His critics said behind his back that he was a hen-pecked man. The whole world knew that he was an old and feeble man. But the blood of Ali ran in his shrivelled veins; and it went boiling at the insolence of this red-headed beggar of a star-gazer, who dared beard him in his own harem. His hand leaped for his sword, and found only an empty scabbard; for the peaceable old Pasha had long ceased to carry the deadly scimitar, which he had once been wont to wield in the forefront of battle. His eyes fell upon the only weapon in sight, a razor (he afterward wondered what use there could have been for it in the harem); and, seizing it, he shouted in a voice of thunder, “Out of this, fortune-telling dog, liar, and humbug, ere I cut the false tongue out of thy insolent throat!”
The Soothsayer fled from the palace in terror; but, on gaining the street, he found his voice again, and began shrieking aloud that the Pasha had become mad and was threatening the lives of all his friends.