'Elbetteh, certainly': 'Belli, yes': 'Een che harf est? what word is this?' was heard to issue from every mouth, and I requested the dervish to proceed.
He called again to his servant, who produced a small bag, whilst he again took the cup under his charge.
'This bag,' said the diviner, 'contains some old rice. I will put a small handful of it into each person's mouth, which they will forthwith chew. Let those who cannot break it, beware, for Eblis is near at hand.'
Upon this, placing us in a row, he filled each person's mouth with rice, and all immediately began to masticate. Being the complainant, of course I was exempt from the ordeal; and my mother, who chose to make common cause with me, also stood out of the ranks. The quick-sighted dervish would not allow of this, but made her undergo the trial with the rest, saying, 'The property we seek is not yours, but your son's. Had he been your husband, it would be another thing.' She agreed to his request, though with bad grace, and then all the jaws were set to wagging, some looking upon it as a good joke, others thinking it a hard trial to the nerves. As fast as each person had ground his mouthful, he called to the dervish, and showed the contents of his mouth.
All had now proved their innocence excepting the âkhon and my mother. The former, whose face exhibited the picture of an affected cheerfulness with great nervous apprehension, kept mumbling his rice, and turning it over between his jaws, until he cried out in a querulous tone, 'Why do you give me this stuff to chew? I am old, and have no teeth:—it is impossible for me to reduce the grain'; and then he spat it out. My mother, too, complained of her want of power to break the hard rice, and did the same thing. A silence ensued, which made us all look with more attention than usual upon them, and it was only broken by a time-server of my mother, an old woman, who cried out, 'What child's play is this? Who has ever heard of a son treating his mother with this disrespect, and his old schoolmaster, too? Shame, shame!—let us go—he is probably the thief himself.'
Upon this the dervish said, 'Are we fools and asses, to be dealt with in this manner? Either there was money in that corner, or there was not—either there are thieves in the world, or there are not. This man and this woman,' pointing to the âkhon and my mother, 'have not done that which all the rest have done. Perhaps they say the truth, they are old, and cannot break the hard grain. Nobody says that they stole the money—they themselves know that best,' said he, looking at them through and through; 'but the famous diviner, Hezarfun, he who was truly called the bosom friend to the Great Bear, and the confidant of the planet Saturn,—he who could tell all that a man has ever thought, thinks, or will think,—he hath said that the trial by rice, among cowards was the best of all tests of a man's honesty. Now, my friends, from all I have remarked, none of you are slayers of lions, and fear is easily produced among you. However, if you doubt my skill in this instance, I will propose a still easier trial,—one which commits nobody, which works like a charm upon the mind, and makes the thief come forward of his own accord, to ease his conscience and purse of its ill-gotten wealth, at one and the same time. I propose the Hâk reezî, or the heaping up earth. Here in this corner I will make a mound, and will pray so fervently this very night, that, by the blessing of Allah, the Hajji,' pointing to me, 'Will find his money buried in it to-morrow at this hour. Whoever is curious, let them be present, and if something be not discovered, I will give him a miscal of hair from my beard.'
He then set to work, and heaped up earth in a corner, whilst the lookers on loitered about, discussing what they had just seen; some examining me and the dervish as children of the evil spirit, whilst others again began to think as much of my mother and the schoolmaster. The company then dispersed, most of them promising to return the following morning, at the appointed time, to witness the search into the heap of earth.
