'It is evident you are a stranger,' said the conductor, who appeared to be as loquacious and mother-witted as those of his profession generally are, 'or otherwise you would have been better informed. We are carrying rare things to Kerbelah!'
'Yes,' said I, 'I am a stranger; I come from afar, and am like one decended from the mountains. In God's name, what are you carrying to Kerbelah?'
'What!' answered he, 'have you heard nothing of the extraordinary death of the mollah bashi of Tehran; how he died in the bath; and how his ghost was seen on horseback, and then in his harem; and how it afterwards ran off with one of the chief executioner's best horses? Where have you been living all this while?' added he, shaking both his hands before him as he spoke, and shrugging up his shoulders.
Alarmed at what he had said, I pretended ignorance; and requested him to satisfy my curiosity concerning the story in question, which he did in a manner that, but for my being so deeply implicated in it, would have afforded me much amusement.
'You must know then,' said the muleteer, 'that what I am about to relate is true, because I was on the spot in person, at the time it happened.
'The chief priest having gone to the bath at the close of day, just after the evening prayer, returned to his house surrounded by his servants, and retired to bed for the night in the khelwet of his women's apartments.
'You need not be told that most of the public baths in Persia are open to the women the first thing in the morning, to a certain hour in the day, and are then appropriated to the men. The wife of the mollah bashi, attended by her servants and slaves, the morning after her husband had bathed, at the earliest sound of the cow horn, proceeded to the same bath, and she and her suite were the first party who entered it on that day. Out of respect to their mistress, none of her attendants ventured to get into the reservoir of hot water before her. The cupola of the bath was but very dimly lighted by the dawn; and the chief priest's wife was almost in utter darkness when she entered the water. Guess at her horror, when scarcely having proceeded two steps, her extended hand fell upon a large mass of floating flesh.
'Her first impulse was to utter an amazing shriek; her second to tumble headlong out as if she had been pursued, and straight to faint away.
'The consternation which she produced amongst her women may easily be conceived. One after the other, with the lamp in their hand, they looked in, shrieked, and then ran back, not one among them having yet discovered what was the object of their terror.
'At length the old duenna taking courage, looked boldly into the reservoir, and to her surprise she there found a dead man. More screams and cries ensued, which having brought the chief priest's wife to her senses, caused her to join the inspecting party. Little could be recognized of a floating corpse inflated with water, presenting various odd surfaces to the eye, and giving but little clue to discovery. At length the head and face appeared to view; and, as soon as the old duenna had applied her lamp to it, one and all cried out, "O Ali! it is the mollah bashi; it is the mollah bashi!"