The officers were despatched; and in less than an hour, during which the
pacha and his vizier smoked in silence, the cadi with the others made
their appearance.
"May your highness's shadow never be less!" said the cadi, as he
entered.
"Mobarek! may you be fortunate!" replied the pacha. "What is this we
hear, cadi? there is a goat's-skin bag, and a girl, that are not known
to our justice. Are there secrets like those hid in the well of
Kashan--speak! what dirt have you been eating?"
"What shall I say?" replied the cadi; "I am but as dirt; the money is
here, and the girl is here. Is the pacha to be troubled with every
woman's noise, or am I come before him with a piece or two of gold--Min
Allah--God forbid! Have I not here the money, and _seven more purses_?
Was not the girl visited by the angel of death; and could she appear
before your presence lean as a dog in the bazaar? Is she not here?
Have I spoken well?"
"It is well said, cadi. Murakhas--you are dismissed."
The Frank physician was then fined one hundred sequins more; fifty for
feeling the pulse, and fifty more for looking at a Turkish woman's
tongue. The young woman was dismissed to the pacha's harem, the old
woman to curse as much as she pleased, and Hudusi with full permission
to _doubt_ any thing but the justice of the pacha.
VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWO.
"Mashallah! God be praised! we are rid of that fellow and his doubts.
I have been thinking, Mustapha, as I smoked the pipe of surmise, and
arrived at the ashes of certainty, that a man who had so many doubts,
could not be a true believer. I wish I had sent him to the mollahs; we
might have been amused with his being impaled, which is a rare object,
now-a-days."
"God is great," replied Mustapha, "and a stake is a strong argument, and
would remove many doubts. But I have an infidel in the court-yard who
telleth of strange things. He hath been caught like a wild beast; it is
a Frank Galiongi, who hath travelled as far as that son of Shitan,
Huckaback; he was found in the streets, overpowered by the forbidden
juice, after having beaten many of your highness's subjects, and the
cadi would have administered the bamboo, but he was as a lion, and he
scattered the slaves as chaff, until he fell, and could not rise again.
I have taken him from the cadi, and brought him here. He speaketh but
the Frankish tongue, but the sun who shineth on me knoweth I have been
in the Frank country; and Inshallah! please the Lord, I can interpret
his meaning."
"What sort of a man may he be, Mustapha?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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