conversing in our language, we were able to communicate with
each other with great freedom without the fear of being understood. I
explained my situation, and informed him of my intentions to escape, and
assured him that I would do everything in my power to be useful to him.
He seemed delighted to meet with kind words, where he expected nothing
but ill-treatment; and when I had thus acquired his confidence, he
did not scruple to talk to me freely about himself and his concerns.
I discovered what I had before suspected, that he was a man of
consequence, for he was no less a personage than the court poet,
enjoying the title of _Melek al Shoherah_, or the Prince of Poets. He
was on his road from Shiraz (whither he had been sent by the Shah on
business) to Tehran, and had that very day reached Ispahan, when he had
fallen into our hands. In order to beguile the tediousness of the road
through the Salt Desert, after I had related my adventures, I requested
him to give me an account of his, which he did in the following words:

'I was born in the city of Kerman, and my name is Asker. My father was
for a long time governor of that city, during the reign of the eunuch
Aga Mohammed Shah; and although the intrigues that were set on foot
against him to deprive him of his government were very mischievous,
still such was his respectability, that his enemies never entirely
prevailed against him. His eyes were frequently in danger, but his
adroitness preserved them; and he had at last the good fortune to die
peaceably in his bed in the present Shah's reign. I was permitted to
possess the property which he left, which amounted to about 10,000
tomauns. In my youth I was remarkable for the attention which I paid
to my studies, and before I had arrived at the age of sixteen I was
celebrated for writing a fine hand. I knew Hafiz entirely by heart,
and had myself acquired such a facility in making verses, that I might
almost have been said to speak in numbers. There was no subject that I
did not attempt. I wrote on the loves of Leilah and Majnoun;[19] I never
heard the note of a nightingale, but I made it pour out its loves to the
rose; and wherever I went I never failed to produce my poetry and chant
it out in the assembly. At this time the king was waging war with Sadik
Khan, a pretender to the throne, and a battle was fought, in which his
majesty commanded in person, and which terminated in the defeat of the
rebel. I immediately sang the k