'But,' said I, 'suppose a nasakchi discovers the horse, what becomes of us then? You will be seized as well as I.'
'God is great,' answered the mollah; 'no one can have travelled as fast as we, and before any officer can arrive at Hamadan I shall have reached my father's house, and produced all the sensation I require in the city. It will be easy after that to secrete both the horse and his trappings. I take all the risk upon myself.'
Nothing more after this was to be said on my part. We immediately stripped, and made an exchange of clothes. He got from me the deceased mollah bashi's under garment, his caba, or coat, his Cashmerian girdle, and his outward cloak, made of a dark green broad cloth; and I, in return, received his old clothes, which had been torn on his person the day he had been thrust out of Tehran. I gave him my black cap, round which he wound the chief priest's head-shawl, which I had still preserved; and, in return, he delivered over to me his skull-cap. I preserved the mollah bashi's purse, the remaining money, the watch and seals; whilst I permitted him the use of the inkstand, the rosary, the pocket looking-glass, and the comb. He then stuck the roll of paper in his girdle; and when completely made up and mounted, he looked so much like the deceased chief priest himself, that I quite started at the resemblance.
We parted with great apparent affection: he promised that I should hear from him immediately, and in the meanwhile gave me every necessary information concerning his father's village, leaving it to my own ingenuity to make out as plausible a story for myself as I might be able. He then rode away, leaving me with no very agreeable feelings, on finding myself alone in the world, uncertain of the future, and suspicious of my present fate.
I made the best of my road to the village; but was extremely puzzled in what character to introduce myself to the inhabitants. In fact, I looked like one dropped from the skies; for what could be possibly said for a man, of good appearance, without a shawl to his waist, or an outer coat to his back, with a pair of slippers to his feet, and a skull-cap on his head? After much hesitation I determined to call myself a merchant, who had been robbed and plundered by the Cûrds, and then sham a sickness, which might be a pretext for remaining in the village until I could hear from the mollah, who would no doubt furnish me with intelligence which might enable me to determine how long I ought to remain in my hiding-place.
In this I succeeded perfectly. The good people of the village, whom Heaven for my good luck had endowed with a considerable share of dullness, believed my story, and took me in. The only inconvenience I had to endure was the necessity of swallowing prescriptions of an old woman, the doctor of the community, who was called to show her skill upon me.
CHAPTER LXI — The punishment due to Hajji Baba falls upon Nadân, which makes the former a staunch predestinarian.
I had passed ten long and tedious days in my hiding-place without the smallest tidings from the mollah Nadân. I was suspicious that his star was still glancing obliquely at him, and that matters had not gone quite so well as he had expected. Little communication existed between the city and the village; and I began to despair of ever again hearing of my horse, my rich trappings and clothes, when, one evening a peasant, who had gone to the market-place of Hamadan for the purpose of hiring himself as a labourer in the fields, and who had returned disappointed, by his discourse threw some light upon my apprehension.
He said that a great stir had been excited by the arrival of a nasakchi, who had seized the son of their Aga (the owner of the village), taken away his horse, and carried him off prisoner to the capital, under the accusation of being the murderer of the mollah bashi of Tehran.