“What is written is written,” replied the serene dalal.
Ibrahim was frothing at the lips, his eyes were blood-injected. “But it was never written that....”
“Peace,” said the dalal. “Had it not been written it could not have come to pass. It is the will of Allah! Who dares rebel against it?”
The crowd began to murmur.
“I want my hundred philips,” the Jew insisted, whereupon the murmur swelled into a sudden roar.
“Thou hearest?” said the dalal. “Allah pardon thee, thou art disturbing the peace of this market. Away, ere ill betide thee.”
“Hence! hence!” roared the crowd, and some advanced threateningly upon the luckless Ibrahim. “Away, thou perverter of Holy Writ! thou filth! thou dog! Away!”
Such was the uproar, such the menace of angry countenances and clenched fists shaken in his very face, that Ibrahim quailed and forgot his loss in fear.
“I go, I go,” he said, and turned hastily to depart.
But the dalal summoned him back. “Take hence thy property,” said he, and pointed to the body. And so Ibrahim was forced to suffer the further mockery of summoning his slaves to bear away the lifeless body for which he had paid in lively potent gold.