When the rector rode away on horseback to follow Daniel Boone's trail, I began to spend along the wharves all the time I could find. Murad invited me to inspect _The Rose of Egypt_, and soon I was as much at home on board of her as were the sailors the Egyptian had shipped. Murad, in his endeavors to make me feel at ease, spun yarns about his career that were as fascinating as any tale Scheherazade told. One vividly described how he, having been driven from Alexandria through persecution, decided to earn his salt by assuming the character of a dervish--a rôle in which he had to pretend to be both a priest and a conjurer. He professed to be a devout Mohammedan, and practiced this holy profession of dervish by giving advice to the sick, and by selling, for considerable sums of money, small pieces of paper on which were written sentences in Turkish from the Koran, which he sanctified by applying them to his shaven and naked crown. At a place called Trebizond he was informed by the people that their ruler was dangerously sick and threatened with blindness. He was ordered by the ministers of the Bashaw to prescribe for him. Through files of armed soldiers he was conducted into the presence of the sick monarch. Calling upon the officers to kneel, he displayed all the pomp and haughtiness that is expected of a dervish. After invoking the aid of Allah and Mohammed, he inquired under what disease the Bashaw labored. Finding that he was afflicted with a fever, accompanied by a violent inflammation of the eyes, Murad made bold to predict that he would recover both health and sight by the time of the next new moon. Searching in the pouch containing his medicines, he produced a white powder which he ordered to be blown into the ruler's eyes, and directed that a wash of milk and water should then be used. He likewise recommended that the patient be sweated by the use of warm drinks and blankets. He was well rewarded with money and presents. The next day the caravan he was traveling with departed for Persia, and Murad, hoping to be nine or ten days' journey from Trebizond by the time of the next new moon, so that he might be quite out of reach in case his remedy should harm instead of help the Bashaw, departed with it. The caravan was a large one and heavily loaded. A few days later it was overtaken by a lighter caravan, also from Trebizond. Murad, trembling in his shoes, heard two men of the newly arrived caravan talking to each other concerning the marvellous cure of the Bashaw. He learned that the court and citizens of Trebizond were singing his praises, and searching for him to heap rewards upon him. "I was tempted to return," Murad concluded his yarn, "but I began to wonder what the restored Bashaw would say if some jealous physician should investigate my remedy and find that _I had blown lime in the Bashaw's eyes to eat the films of disease away_!"