my story in as
concise a manner as possible; and, to corroborate all that I had said,
added, that if he would order his horsemen to attack the party of
Turcomans, who still were close at hand, they might release the king's
poet, with two other Persians, who were prisoners in their hands, and
they would fully confirm all that I had asserted.

I had no sooner said this than the horsemen, who had pursued Aslan
Sultan, returned, with looks of great dismay, swearing by Ali and by
the head of the king, that an immense body of Turcomans, at least 1,000
strong, were marching down upon us, and that the prince must prepare
to fight. In vain I explained to them that they were only twenty in
number--no body would believe me; I was treated as a spy and a liar, and
every one said that if the Turcomans did attack, they would put me to
death on the spot. The party then proceeded onwards at a good pace,
looking about in all directions for the expected enemy, and betraying
all those symptoms of apprehension which the very name of Turcoman
excites throughout the whole of Persia.

My own horse had been taken from me, and I was permitted to ride upon
a baggage mule, where I had time to ponder over my wretched fate and
miserable prospects. Without a farthing in my pocket, without a
friend, I saw nothing before me but starvation. I had not yet become a
sufficiently good Mussulman to receive comfort from predestination, and
I absolutely sobbed aloud at my own folly, for having voluntarily
been the cause of my present misery. That fond partiality for my own
countrymen, which used to predominate so powerfully in my breast when I
was a prisoner, entirely forsook me here, and I cursed them aloud.

'You call yourselves Mussulmans!' said I to those around me: 'you have
not the feelings of dogs. Dogs did I say? You are worse than Christian
dogs--the Turcomans are men compared to you.'

Then when I found that this sort of language only produced laughter
in my auditors, I tried what entreaty would do. 'For the love of Imam
Hossein, for the sake of the Prophet, by the souls of your children, why
do you treat a stranger thus? Am I not a Mussulman like yourselves? What
have I done that I should be made to devour this grief? I sought refuge
amongst you as friends, and I am thrust away as an enemy.'

For all this I got no consolation, excepting from an old muleteer, by
name Ali Katir, who had just lighted his _kalian_, or water pipe, and
giving it to