“That is your best plan,” rejoined the grazier. “They do not deserve freedom; and may Allah forbid that hereafter any true believer should try to help them to it!”
Early next morning Bo Muzem set out on his return journey, thankful for the good fortune that had enabled him so early to detect the imposture that was being practised upon him.
He was accompanied by the grazier, who chanced to be journeying in the same direction.
“The next Christian slaves I see for sale I intend buying,” remarked the latter, as they journeyed along.
“Bismillah!” exclaimed Bo Muzem; “that is strange. I thought you had had enough of them?”
“So I have,” assented the grazier; “but that’s just why I want more of them. I want revenge on the unbelieving dogs; and will buy them for the purpose of obtaining it. I will work them until they are too old for anything, and then let them die in a ditch.”
“Then buy the ones we have for sale,” proposed Bo Muzem. “We are willing to sell them cheap, all but one. The man who wrote this letter I must kill. I have sworn it by the Prophet’s beard.”
As both parties appeared anxious for a bargain, they soon came to an understanding as to the terms; and the grazier promised to give ten dollars in money and four heads of horses for each of the slaves that was for sale. He also agreed that one of his herdsmen should assist in driving the cattle to any settlement where a market might be found for them.
The simple Bo Muzem had now in reality been “sold”: for the story he had been told about the escape for the two slaves, Terence and Jim, was wholly and entirely false.