“Great honor is on all of you!” cried Mâs, as he moved on. A group of men, set in circle upon a grass-clad crown of rock beneath the wall, rose as one and did obeisance with words of blessing.
“Pursue your business, I entreat you,” said Shems-ud-dìn graciously, taking seat with them. “Let not my presence trouble you. I would listen awhile before I speak.”
After some polite demur, the blacks resumed their conference; and Shems-ud-dìn listened with interest, but the mind of Zeyd turned again to the contemplation of its own blessedness.
One of the circle, who was called the Pearl, told with much childish lamentation how he had been wrongfully accused of theft, and beaten by his master. “I know well the thief,” he blubbered. “And my back is sore. I would see him punished. Is it right that I inform my master?”
Then their head, that was the doorkeeper of the Frank physician, stroked his beard and answered thoughtfully:
“To steal is not good. Where I was born, they cut off the right hand of him who steals. But here it is otherwise. Here be many thieves, very wicked men.... Inform not against thy fellow-servant, now that thy trial is past. In the moment of pain it had been well enough to name him. Thou art young, O Pearl, and strong, none like thee. Take that thief apart, and beat him even as thou wast beaten, that he sin no more.”
When the negroes ceased to praise God for that wise judgment, another cause was brought forward. But Zeyd heard no more. Watching the blush fade upon those distant heights, the wall of his own land, he sat entranced by the mystery of being.
The buzz of voices ceased. He heard as if in a dream the voice of Ismaìl say:
“Deign now to instruct us, O master!”