Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/33

15 him a whole year, buying and selling, till I had gotten a hundred dinars; when I hired an upper chamber by the river-side, so haply a ship should come up with merchandise, that I might buy goods with the dinars and go with them to Baghdad.

One day, there came ships with merchandise, and all the merchants resorted to them to buy, and I with them. [We boarded one of the ships,] and behold, there came two men out of the hold and setting themselves chairs on the deck, sat down thereon. The merchants accosted them, with intent to buy, and they said to one of the crew, “Bring the carpet.” So he brought the carpet and spread it, and another came with a pair of saddle-bags, from which he took a budget and emptied it on the carpet; and our sights were dazzled with that which issued thence of pearls and corals and jacinths and cornelians and other jewels of all sorts and colours. Then said one of the men on the chairs, “O merchants, we will sell but this to-day, by way of spending-money, for that we are weary.” So the merchants fell to bidding for the jewels and bid, one against the other, till the price reached four hundred dinars.

Now the owner of the bag was an old acquaintance of mine, and when he saw me, he came down to me and saluting me, said, “Why dost thou not speak and bid like the rest of the merchants?” “O my lord,” answered I, “the shifts of fortune have run against me and I have lost my wealth and have but a hundred dinars left in the world.” Quoth he, “O Omani, after this vast wealth, do but a hundred dinars remain to thee?” And I was abashed before him and my eyes filled with tears; whereupon he looked at me and indeed my case was grievous to him. So he said to the merchants, “Bear witness against me that I sell all that is in this bag of various kinds of jewels and precious stones to this man for a hundred