"You don't? You're joking!" The Emîr stared at him.
"I do, sir. You know, there's lots of country neffer been exblored away there to the south and east, behind the Jordan. No one effer goes there. My father went there once—he was a muleteer and traffeled all about in those days—and in the desert, far away from any houses, he found a blace where bits of gold were lyin' on the ground quite thick like bebbles in a mountain wady."
"But your father was not rich," the Frank objected.
"No, sir; and just because he was not rich, he could not go again and fetch the gold. It wants horses and camels, and many men and arms to make afraid the Bedouins. My father saw that blace with his own eyes, and before he died he wrote a baber teach me how to get there. He told me he got a big biece of gold, enough to make him rich, but had to drob it after a bit, it was so heffy."
"How far is the place from here?"
"Nine days or ten, I think. When I get home I look in the baber which my father left and see for certain."
"But perhaps your father was mistaken, and the stuff he found was not gold at all."
"That might be." Iskender grasped his chin reflectively, admitting that he had not thought of that contingency. "But father was a knowing man," he added; "he looked close at things. Though he was only a boor common man, he had traffeled a great deal, and I think he'd know gold when he saw it."
"I must say I should like to go and see," exclaimed the Emîr, now warming to the subject.
"You'd better not, sir, till you make sure of brotection. The desert beeble don't like strangers hangin' round. And the Guffernment would stob you, if they got to know. I thought I'd tell you, sir, because you're kindest friend I effer had. Then by-and-by you get some friends to join you, and go with a strong barty; and then, when you've got much gold, you think: Iskender made me a nice bresent. I hobe you think so. I know I am only a boor common man, like dirt to you. But I luff you truly, sir, and wish to gif you something."