“What matter it? God giveth to one man a diadem and a throne; another as great in his sight, sitteth in the dust at the gate of the city and soliciteth alms; time may shift the one to the other’s place, and one is as well off as the other. If you would have peace, strike not the feeble, soothe the afflicted, do good as it is offered to your hand. If you would make the night of your prison as bright as day, light it with the lamp of your good works. The less you have here, the smoother your road to paradise. A camel carrying only his hump of curses and blessings makes the best time. You see before you a beggar who would not exchange his peace of mind for the sceptre of Chalginna. A king must be a light sleeper or lose his head with his crown.”
The king thought over this counsel. A few days later he asked the beggar woman to bring him a bag of silver coins, and among them she placed a few gold ones.
Thereafter, when a beggar spoke to the king of being hungry—after he had promised not to mention the gift—a silver coin found its way into his hand. A poor water carrier with a large family, who had lost his donkey, received a gold coin to buy another. A mother of three [pg 354] small children was given one with which to buy a goat and some food. A crippled beggar, forced to visit a far country, was given two gold coins, with which he purchased an old but serviceable camel.
The king advised with and comforted all who sought him. His subjects grew in number, the homage they rendered was prompted by affection and the tribute they paid was love.
On his birthday, in the second year of his imprisonment, the prison house was dressed in blue lotus flowers and wreathed with palm leaves, and a great collar of flowers was placed about the neck of Gisco.
Chalginna, riding in state beyond the great gate, was impressed by the decorations and the gathering. More than three hundred beggars, mainly women and children, bearing palm branches, were gathered around the little prison house and on a throne covered with goat skins, just under the inscription, sat a little boy, wearing a crown of blue lotus flowers and holding a palm branch sceptre.
Contemptuously curious, he asked the child’s name and was told, “He is the son of a beggar woman, probably a leper, that lives in a hovel near the gate,” whereat he laughed and rode on.
The celebration ended by the planting of a thrifty young palm to the right of the prison. From the day of its planting, each beggar when he had water to spare, poured it about its root, and the tree grew rugged and thrifty from these libations.
On each succeeding birthday the same ceremony was repeated, until a grove of fifteen thrifty young palms shaded the prison and made a comfortable resting place for the beggars and the traveling poor.
[pg 355] The boy who took the part of king, now almost a man, continued in that character. The assembly of beggars at these birthday ceremonies now numbered thousands. They looked upon the imprisoned king with more favor than on Chalginna, who to feed his extravagances, became an extortionist and was fast making beggars of even his most loyal subjects. It was beginning to be whispered about that many of those who participated in the ceremony were not really beggars, and the captain of the gate suggested to Chalginna that the crowd was growing dangerous. He rode out to see and, impressed by its proportions, determined in the future to forbid the ceremony.