'I am his heir, 'tis true; but what of that? what advantage can accrue to me, when I only get an old mud-built house, with some worn-out carpets, some pots and pans and decayed furniture, and yonder shop with a brass basin and a dozen of razors? Let me spit upon such an inheritance.'
'But where is your money, your ready cash, Hajji? Your father (God be with him!) had the reputation of being as great a niggard of his money as he was liberal of his soap. Everybody knows that he amassed much, and never passed a day without adding to his store.'
'That may be true,' said I; 'but what advantage will that be to me, since I cannot find where it was deposited? My mother says that he had none—the âkhon repeats the same—I am no conjuror to discover the truth. I had it in my mind to go to the cadi.'
'To the cadi?' said Ali Mohamed. 'Heaven forbid! Go not to him—you might as well knock at the gate of this caravanserai, when I am absent, as try to get justice from him, without a heavy fee. No, he sells it by the miscal, at a heavy price, and very light weight does he give after all. He does not turn over one leaf of the Koran, until his fingers have been well plated with gold, and if those who have appropriated your father's sacks are to be your opponents, do not you think that they will drain them into the cadi's lap, rather than he should pronounce in your favour?'
'What, then, is to be done?' said I. 'Perhaps the diviners might give me some help.'
'There will be no harm in that,' answered the doorkeeper. 'I have known them make great discoveries during my service in this caravanserai. Merchants have frequently lost their money, and found it again through their means. It was only in the attack of the Turcomans, when much property was stolen, that they were completely at their wits' end. Ah! that was a strange event. It brought much misery on my head; for some were wicked enough to say that I was their accomplice, and, what is more extraordinary, that you were amongst them, Hajji!—for it was on account of your name, which the dog's son made use of to induce me to open the gate, that the whole mischief was produced.'
Lucky was it for me, that old Ali Mohamed was very dull of sight, or else he would have remarked strange alterations in my features when he made these observations. However, our conference ended by his promising to send me the most expert diviner of Ispahan; 'a man,' said he, 'who would entice a piece of gold out of the earth, if buried twenty gez deep, or even if it was hid in the celebrated well of Kashan.'[84]
CHAPTER L — Showing the steps he takes to discover his property, and who the diviner, Teez Negah, was.
The next morning, soon after the first prayers, a little man came into my room, whom I soon discovered to be the diviner. He was a humpback, with an immense head, with eyes so wonderfully brilliant, and a countenance so intelligent, that I felt he could look through and through me at one glance. He wore a dervish's cap, from under which flowed a profusion of jet black hair, which, added to a thick bush of a beard, gave an imposing expression to his features. His eyes, which by a quick action of his eyelid (whether real or affected, I know not) twinkled like stars, made the monster, who was not taller than a good bludgeon, look like a little demon.