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I dare say he is a good plain man, however unused to the company of high personages, and in any case I am able to make allowances for any whiff of passing ill-humour or jealousy." During this conversation between Haroun and Abraha, Giafer and Sidi ibn Thalabi had fallen a little way behind and were walking and talking together.
Murad Essed, like Sidi ibn Thalabi and Abraha, knew Haroun only in his assumed character as a merchant. There were, however, other guests who were very well acquainted with both the Caliph and the Grand Vizier. There was, for instance, the singer and composer, Ishak ibn Ibrahim el Mosili, a great favourite of Haroun's; and the blind poet, Abu 'Atahiyeh, with several others.
Addressing Abraha, he said, "You must be pleased, sir, to excuse any roughness or want of good manners and politeness on the part of my friend Yussuf; he is perhaps a little bit jealous of the good fortune of one who has been regarded as the Grand Vizier."
Undeceived by an insult which Masrouq, the true son of Abraha and successor of Yaksoum, offered him, Saif became a refugee at the court of Chosroes, and importuned the Great King to embrace his quarrel and reinstate him on the throne of his fathers.
Abraha, who was a rather dull and stolid personage, accepted these mock apologies with such imperturbable gravity and sincerity that Haroun was delighted with him. Saluting Haroun very solemnly, the sham Grand Vizier said, "Sir, I beg that you will give yourself no concern respecting the language or demeanour of your friend Yussuf.
"She is weary," clamoured the populace, but Mahomet knew otherwise. "Al-Caswa is not weary," he replied, "but that which restrained the armies in the Year of the Elephant now restraineth her." And he would go no farther into the sacred territory, fearing the doom that had afflicted Abraha in that fateful year.
But first," he continued, "let me introduce my friend and companion, who is indeed no other than my brother-in-law Abraha, but whom the people who take me to be the Caliph insist upon regarding as the Grand Vizier."
Saif, the son of Dsu-Yezm, descended from the race of the old Homerite kings whom the Abyssinians had conquered, grew up at the court of Abraha in the belief that that prince, who had married his mother, was not his step-father, but his father.
Having thus got rid of the slaves, Haroun and Giafer accompanied their new acquaintances, Abraha and Sidi ibn Thalabi, on board the ship or pleasure barge belonging to the latter. After they had been seated for some time, and had appeased their hunger by partaking of a very substantial breakfast, Haroun said to Sidi ibn Thalabi
"An incident that occurred only two days since will illustrate what I have been saying. I was on my way to the river accompanied by Abraha only, when passing through a street in the lower part of the town we came upon a crowd of people shouting and gesticulating and making a great hubbub.
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