I got out of the scrape as well as I was able, by assuring him that she had once been the flower of the royal harem, and reminded him that nothing had so much to do with marriage as destiny.
'Ah! that destiny', said he, 'is an answer for everything; but be its effects what it may, it can no more make an old hag a young woman, than it can make one and one three.'
Sorely did I fear that he would return his bargain upon our hands; but when he found that it was impossible to expect anything better in a mutî, a class of females, who generally were the refuse of womankind,—old widows, and deserted wives; and who, rather than live under the opprobrium that single life entails in our Mahomedan countries, would put up with anything that came under the denomination of husband, he agreed to take her to his home. I expected, like a hungry hawk, who, the instant he is unhooded, pounces upon his prey, that Osman as soon as he had got a sight of his charmer, would have carried her off with impatience; but I was disappointed. He walked leisurely on to his room in the caravanserai, and told her that she might follow him whenever it suited her convenience.
CHAPTER LVI — Showing how the ambition of the mollah Nadân involves both him and his disciples in ruin.
Upon a closer acquaintance with my master, the mollah Nadân, I found that, besides his being the most covetous of men, he was also the most ambitious; and that his great and principal object was to become the chief priest of Tehran. To that he turned all his thoughts, and left nothing untried which might bring him into notice, either as a zealous practiser of the ordinances of his religion, or a persecutor of those who might be its enemies. He was the leader in prayer at the principal mosque; he lectured at the royal medresseh, or college; and whenever he could, he encouraged litigants to appeal to him for the settlement of their disputes. On every occasion, particularly at the festival of the No Rouz, when the whole corps of mollahs are drawn up in array before the king, to pray for his prosperity, he always managed to make himself conspicuous by the over-abundance of adulation which he exhibited, and by making his sonorous voice predominate over that of others.
By such means, he had acquired considerable celebrity among the people, although those who knew him better held him in no great estimation. An opportunity soon occurred which abundantly proved this, and which, as I will now narrate, gave an entire new turn to my fortunes.
The winter had passed over our heads, and spring was already far advanced, when reports reached the capital, that in the southern provinces of the kingdom, particularly in Lar and Fars, there had been such a total want of rain that serious apprehensions of a famine were entertained. As the year rolled on, the same apprehensions prevailed in the more northern provinces; and a drought, such as before was never known, gave rise to the most dismal forebodings. The Shah ordered prayers to be put up at all the mosques in the city for rain, and the mollah bashi was very active in enforcing the order.