“My father,” said Omar, “permit this young man to thank you for the lesson of prudence which you have given him by frightening him a little.  He knows well that it was you who sent me to his aid, and that all this is a farce.  No one is deceived by hearing the son oppose the Father, and who has ever doubted Mansour’s experience and generosity?”

“No one,” interrupted the cadi, starting up like a man suddenly awakened from a dream, “and I least of all; and this is why I have permitted you to speak, my young Solomon.  I wished to honor in you the wisdom of your father; but another time avoid meddling with his highness’s name; it is not safe to sport with the lion’s paws.  The matter is settled.  The necklace is worth a hundred thousand piasters, is it not, Mansour?  This madcap, shall give you, therefore, a hundred thousand piasters, and all parties will be satisfied.”

Notes—­A cadi in the Mohammedan countries corresponds to our magistrate.

A sheik among the Arabs and Moors, may mean simply an old man, or, as in this case, a man of eminence.

A Banian is a Hindoo merchant, particularly one who visits foreign countries on business.

Jidda is a city in Arabia, on the Red Sea

A pasha is the governor of a Turkish province.

The Turkish piaster was formerly worth twenty-five cents:  it is now worth only about eight cents.

LXXV.  THANATOPSIS. (275)

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language:  for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. 
                             When thoughts
Of the last hitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—­
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around—­
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—­
Comes a still voice,—­

Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image.  Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements;
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon.  The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.

Yet not to thine eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent.  Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world,—­with kings,
The powerful of the earth,—­the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,—­
All in one mighty sepulcher.