he Christians in his
place.' This is the popular expression of the doctrine that the good are
sure of salvation. Omar chimed in at once, 'Certainly there is no doubt
of it, and I know a story that happened in the days of Mahommed Ali Pasha
which proves it.' We demanded the story and Omar began. 'There was once
a very rich man of the Muslims so stingy that he grudged everybody even
so much as a "bit of the paper inside the date" (Koran). When he was
dying he said to his wife, "Go out and buy me a lump of pressed dates,"
and when she had brought it he bade her leave him alone. Thereupon he
took all his gold out of his sash and spread it before him, and rolled it
up two or three pieces at a time in the dates, and swallowed it piece
after piece until only three were left, when his wife came in and saw
what he was doing and snatched them from his hand. Presently after he
fell back and died and was carried out to the burial place and laid in
his tomb. When the Kadee's men came to put the seal on his property and
found no money they said, "Oh woman, how is this? we know thy husband was
a rich man and behold we find no money for his children and slaves or for
thee." So the woman told what had happened, and the Kadee sent for three
other of the Ulema, and they decided that after three days she should go
herself to her husband's tomb and open it, and take the money from his
stomach; meanwhile a guard was put over the tomb to keep away robbers.
After three days therefore the woman went, and the men opened the tomb
and said, "Go in O woman and take thy money." So the woman went down
into the tomb alone. When there, instead of her husband's body she saw a
box (coffin) of the boxes of the Christians, and when she opened it she
saw the body of a young girl, adorned with many ornaments of gold
necklaces, and bracelets, and a diamond _Kurs_ on her head, and over all
a veil of black muslin embroidered with gold. So the woman said within
herself, "Behold I came for money and here it is, I will take it and
conceal this business for fear of the Kadee." So she wrapped the whole
in her _melayeh_ (a blue checked cotton sheet worn as a cloak) and came
out, and the men said "Hast thou done thy business?"' and she answered
"Yes" and returned home.

'In a few days she gave the veil she had taken from the dead girl to a
broker to sell for her in the bazaar, and the broker went and showed it
to the people and was offered one hundred pias