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190 She thought of the marabout's prophesy and trembled for the fate of her elder son; and she persuaded Taib to leave to Nassim all his belongings; his town house with its pillared courtyards of inlaid marble, its cooling fountain and its ceilings covered with green and gold arabesques; his country estate with its hanging gardens and its orchards of almond, date, apricot and orange; his rich shop in the Sukh Attarin, where his agents sold to the wealthy the perfumes of Arabia, essences of rose, of violet and of geranium.

Thus, when fate rolled up the scroll of Taib's life, Nassim inherited all his father's fortune, and he prospered exceedingly. Every enterprise he touched turned into gold: he made treaties with the pirates of the Barbary coast, and to him they brought the fairest and strongest of the Giaour slaves whom they captured; his caravans, guarded by armed Bedawin tribes, crossed the desert from the white Nile to the black ranges of the Atlas, from the sweet shores of Tripoli to the desert cities of the far bitter South; his ships brought merchandise from Stamboul, Oman, Damascus, and even from far off China, and the people looked up when he passed and said to each other: "There