Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 1).djvu/117

 would not fail to exact from them at least double the amount. Being aware into what hands they were fallen, the chiefs consented, and desired their wives and relatives to produce the money. The ladies of course obeyed; but in order to make it appear that they had achieved the matter with the utmost difficulty, and had in fact collected all they possessed in the world, they included their rings, bracelets, and other ornaments and jewels, the whole amounting to about twenty-eight thousand golden dinars. This sum exceeding what had been demanded, there appeared to be no longer any pretence for detaining the men in prison; but the general, imagining that persons who possessed so much must infallibly possess more, could not prevail upon himself to part with them so easily. Therefore, calling together the prisoners, who were about forty-two in number, he informed them in a tone of great commiseration that he had just received letters from the king, peremptorily commanding him to put them all to death without delay, and that of course he could not dare to disobey the orders of his sovereign. At these words indescribable terror and consternation seizing upon the prisoners, they wept bitterly, and in the poignancy of their anguish conjured the chief to have mercy upon them. The worthy soldier, who had apparently been educated at court, shed tears also, and seemed to be overwhelmed with sorrow and perplexity. While they were in this dilemma, a man who appeared to be totally new to the affair entered, and upon hearing the whole state of the case, gave it as his opinion that the severity of the king might be mitigated by a large sum of money. The prisoners, who appeared to revive at these words, forgetting that, according to their own account, the former mulct had exhausted all their means, now offered immense sums in exchange for their lives, not only to the king, but likewise to the general. This being the point aimed at, their offer