vice,' said Shir Ali, 'neither. The
ked khoda and the elders of Kadj Sawar have sent two lambs to be laid at
your feet; and they have convinced us with our own eyes, that excepting
them, not a thing have they left, not even their own souls, so entirely
and completely have they been pillaged: on the contrary, if food be not
sent to them, they will eat up one another.'

'Do you say so, indeed!' exclaimed the khan: 'if they have lambs, they
must also have sheep. By what account do you reckon?'

'That's true,' said Shir Ali, 'and everything that you say is equally
so; but we were talking of corn, and not of sheep.'

'But why did not you follow your orders, and bring the ked khoda and the
elders?' said our chief. 'If I had been there, the rogues, I would have
roasted them alive. I would have tied them with the camel tie,[74] until
they confessed that they had something. Tell me, why did you not bring
them?'

'We wished much to bring them,' said Shir Ali, looking at me to help him
out. 'Yes, we had bound them all together, and we wanted very much to
bring them: we also beat and abused them. Hajji Baba knows it all; for
Hajji Baba told them if they had not money to give, they would certainly
meet with no mercy. Mercy was a thing totally out of our way; for if
they knew anything, they must be aware that our khan, our lord and
master, the Nasakchi Bashi, was a man of such invincible courage, of a
resolution so great, and of bowels so immovable, that if once they got
within his grasp, it was all over with them. Yes, we told them all that,
and they almost sunk into the earth.'

'What does he say, Hajji Baba?' said the khan, turning round to me: 'I
have not quite understood why these men were not brought to me?'

I answered in great humility, 'Indeed, O khan, I also do not understand.
Shir Ali Beg, who is your deputy-lieutenant, had the whole business in
his hands. I went in his service; I am nobody.'

Upon this the khan got into a violent rage, and branded us by every
odious name of contempt and reproach that he could think of. 'It is
plain,' said he to his friends, 'that these villains have been playing
tricks. Tell me,' said he to Shir Ali, 'by my soul, by the king's
salt, tell me, how much have you got for yourself? And you, Aga Hajji,'
addressing himself to me, 'you, who have scarcely been a month in
service, how much have you secured?'

In vain we both protested our innocence; in vain we swore that there
was nothing