Page:Tales from the Arabic, Vol 1.djvu/245

220 I will give thee six hundred, to boot.’ And the other said, ‘I sell her to thee [at that price].’ So they fetched notaries, who drew up the contract of sale, and the young man counted out to the girl’s master half the purchase money, saying, ‘Let her be with thee till I complete to thee the rest of the price and take my slave-girl.’ The other consented to this and took of him a bond for the rest of the money, and the girl abode with her master, on deposit.

As for the youth, he gave his governor a thousand dirhems and despatched him to his father, to fetch money from him, so he might pay the rest of the girl’s price, saying to him, ‘Be not [long] absent.’ But the governor said in himself, ‘How shall I go to his father and say to him, “Thy son hath wasted thy money and wantoned it away”? With what eye shall I look on him, and indeed, I am he in whom he confided and to whom he hath entrusted his son? Indeed, this were ill seen. Nay, I will fare on to the pilgrimage [with the caravan of pilgrims], in despite of this fool of a youth; and when he is weary [of waiting], he will demand back the money [he hath already paid] and return to his father, and I shall be quit of travail and reproach.’ So he went on with the caravan to the pilgrimage and took up his abode there.

Meanwhile, the youth abode expecting his governor’s