sale;" adding, "O how cooling and grateful is this to my heart!"
Then he called the crier, who came up and kissed the ground
before him; and he said to him, "I want this slave-girl whom thou
art calling for sale." The broker dared not cross him, so he
answered, "O my lord, Bismillah! in Allah's name so be it;" and
led forward the damsel and showed her to him. She pleased him
much whereat he asked, "O Hasan, what is bidden for this girl?"
and he answered, "Four thousand five hundred dinars to open the
door of sale." Quoth Al-Mu'in, "Four thousand five hundred is MY
bid." When the merchants heard this, they held back and dared
not bid another dirham, wotting what they did of the Wazir's
tyranny, violence and treachery. So Al-Mu'in looked at the broker
and said to him, "Why stand still? Go and offer four thousand
dinars for me and the five hundred shall be for thyself."
Thereupon the broker went to Nur al-Din and said, "O my lord, thy
slave is going for nothing!" "And how so?" asked he. The broker
answered, "We had opened the biddings for her at four thousand
five hundred dinars; when that tyrant, Al-Mu'in bin Sawi, passed
through the bazar and, as he saw the damsel she pleased him, so
he cried to me, 'Call me the buyer at four thousand dinars and
thou shalt have five hundred for thyself.' I doubt not but that
he knoweth that the damsel if thine, and if he would pay thee
down her price at once it were well; but I know his injustice and
violence; he will give thee a written order upon some of his
agents and will send after thee to say to them, 'Pay him
nothing.' So as often as though shalt go in quest of the coin
they will say, 'We'll pay thee presently!' and they will put thee
off day after day, and thou art proud of spirit; till at last,
when they are wearied with thine importunity, they will say,
'Show us the cheque.' Then, as soon as they have got hold of it