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With her I was very happy, for she treated me well, and when she went to Mekka on the pilgrimage she let me go out to work on my own account, promising to make me free if God brought her back safely. She was good to me, Bashador, but though she returned safely she always put off making me free; but I had laid by fifteen dollars, and had bought a boxful of clothes as well.
This was a kindly deed, and Mulai Mohammed, our Victorious Master, opened his heart to your Bashador and took him to his innermost councils. And I can remember that great Bashador of yours when he came to this city and was received in the square by the Augdal gardens. Our Master the Sultan came before him on a white horse to speak gracious words under the M'dhal, that shades the ruling House.
"I will tell you, Bashador, and then you will see whether I am justified in speaking of our Government as I do. It is a sad story, but I will tell you all. A few years ago I possessed more than six hundred cows and bullocks, more than twelve hundred sheep, a hundred good camels, fifty mules, twenty horses, and twenty-four mares. I had also four wives and many slaves.
"Oh, Bashador," she pleaded, addressing him as though a foreign envoy, "I take refuge with God and with thee! I have no one else. I have fled from my master, who has cruelly used me. See my back!" Suiting action to word, she slipped aside the coverings from her shoulder and revealed the weals of many a stripe, tears streaming down her face the while.
When they told the kaïd this, he gave permission for me to be let out. I found my wife and children still living, thank God, though they had had very hard times. What has become of my cousins I do not know, and do not dare to ask, but thou couldst, O Bashador, if once I were under thy protection.
Interpreter. "There are some fanatics in the land of Greece, yes, my Lord, who want to see slavery abolished here, by thy leave, yes, my Lord, but I will explain to the Bashador that this is impossible." Sultan. "Certainly. It is an unalterable institution. Those who think otherwise are fools. Besides, your agent Drees deals in slaves!" Interpreter.
'All men shall pay an equal tax throughout my land, said the King of the Age, and the Bashador of the French said, 'Our protected subjects shall not yield even a handful of green corn to the gatherer. Now when the people saw that the tax-gatherers did not travel as they were wont to travel, armed and ready to kill, they hardened their hearts and said, 'We will pay no taxes at all, for these men cannot overcome us. So the tribute was not yielded, and the French Bashador said to the Sultan, 'Thou seest that these people will not pay, but we out of our abundant wealth will give all the money that is needed.
It was a long night, that, indeed, Bashador, a weary night, but we felt sure some worse fate awaited us; what, we could not imagine, for we had committed no crime. Finally, after three days we halted, and the bandages were removed from our eyes. We found ourselves in a market-place in Rahámna, within the jurisdiction of our cursëd kaïd.
"All I know is that, after receiving our present, Si Mohammed sold us to the kaïd for twelve hundred dollars. He was a fool, Bashador, a great fool; had he demanded of us we would have given him twelve hundred dollars to save ourselves what we have had to suffer. "Wonderest thou still, O Bashador, that I prefer the Nazarenes, and wish there were more of them in the country?
And though the kaid said nothing, he remembered all these things. "When he returned, and by the aid of your own Bashador in Tanjah prevailed over the enemies who had set snares in his path while he fared abroad, he stood up before my Lord and told him all he had seen.
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