We carried off much property on the raid, but as our only prisoners were a court poet, a carpet-spreader, and a penniless cadi, we had little to hope for in the way of ransom.  On our return journey we perceived a large body of men, too compact for a caravan—­plainly some great personage and his escort.  The Turcomans retired hastily, but I lagged behind, seeing in this eventuality a means of escape.  I was soon overtaken and seized, plundered of my fifty ducats and everything else, and dragged before the chief personage of the party—­a son of the Shah, on his way to become governor of Khorassan.

Kissing the ground before him, I related my story, and petitioned for the return of my fifty ducats.  The rogues who had taken the money were brought before the prince, who ordered them to be bastinadoed until they produced it.  After a few blows they confessed, and gave up the ducats, which were carried to the prince.  He counted the money, put it under the cushion on which he was reclining, and said loudly to me, “You are dismissed.”

“My money, where is it?” I exclaimed.

“Give him the shoe,” said the prince to his master of the ceremonies, who struck me over the mouth with the iron-shod heel of his slipper, saying:  “Go in peace, or you’ll have your ears cut off.”

“You might as well expect a mule to give up a mouthful of fresh grass,” said an old muleteer to whom I told my misfortune, “as a prince to give up money that has once been in his hands.”

Reaching Meshed in a destitute state, I practised for a time the trade of water-carrier, and then became an itinerant vendor of smoke.  I was not very scrupulous about giving my tobacco pure; and when one day the Mohtesib, or inspector, came to me, disguised as an old woman, I gave him one of my worst mixtures.  Instantly he summoned half a dozen stout fellows; my feet were noosed, and blow after blow was inflicted on them until they were a misshapen mass of flesh and gore.  All that I possessed was taken from me, and I crawled home miserably on my hands and knees.

I felt I had entered Meshed in an unlucky hour, and determined to leave it.  Dressed as a dervish I joined a caravan for Tehran.

II.—­The Fate of the Lovely

I at first resolved to follow the career of a dervish, tempted thereto by the confidences of my companion, Dervish Sefer, who befriended me after my unhappy encounter with the Mohtesib.

“With one-fiftieth of your accomplishments, and a common share of effrontery,” he told me, “you may command both the purses and the lives of your hearers.  By impudence I have been a prophet, by impudence I have wrought miracles—­by impudence, in short, I live a life of great ease.”