Come! come, I see how it
is: you have received your freedom on condition of not betraying your
merciful plunderers. Promises exacted by terror are the bugbears of
fools. Speak, man, all you know. Where are they? What is their force?
Are we supposed to be at hand?'
'I am a faithful subject of the Caliph, and I am bound to serve him,'
replied the merchant; 'I am a devout Moslem, and 'tis my duty to destroy
all Giaours, but I am also a man, and I must look after my own interest.
Noble Governor, the long and the short is, these scoundrels have robbed
me of ten thousand dirhems, as my slaves will tell you: at least, goods
to that amount. No one can prove that they be worth less. It is true
that I include in that calculation the fifty per cent. I was to make
on my shawls at Hamadan, but still to me it is as good as ten thousand
dirhems. Ask my slaves if such an assortment of shawls was ever yet
beheld.'
'To the point, to the point. The robbers?' 'I am at the point. The
shawls is the point. For when I talked of the shawls and the heaviness
of my loss, you must know that the captain of the robbers--'
'Alroy?'
'A fierce young gentleman, I do not know how they call him: said the
captain to me, "Merchant, you look gloomy.
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