As soon as our Rais saw me enter my tent, he came with expressions of very great indignation. “What signifies it, said he, that you are a friend to the Bey, have letters to every body, and are at the door of Furshout, if yet here is a man that will take your boat away from you?”
“Softly, softly, I answered, Hassan, he may be in the right. If Ali Bey, Shekh Hamam, or any body want a boat for public service, I must yield mine. Let us hear.”
“Shekh Hamam and Ali Bey! says he; why it is a fool, an idiot, and an ass; a fellow that goes begging about, and says he is a saint; but he is a natural fool, full as much knave as fool however; he is a thief, I know him to be a thief.”
“If he is a saint, said I, Hagi Hassan, as you are another, known to be so all the world over, I don’t see why I should interfere; saint against saint is a fair battle.”--“It is the Cadi, replies he, and no one else.”
“Come away with me, said I, Hassan, and let us see this cadi; if it is the cadi, it is not the fool, it may be the knave.”
He was sitting upon the ground on a carpet, moving his head backwards and forwards, and saying prayers with beads in his hand. I had no good opinion of him from his first appearance, but said, _Salam alicum_, boldly; this seemed to offend him, as he looked at me with great contempt, and gave me no answer, though he appeared a little disconcerted by my confidence.
“Are you the _Cafr_, said he, to whom that boat belongs?”
“No, Sir, said I, it belongs to Hagi Hassan.”
“Do you think, says he, I call Hagi Hassan, who is a Sherriffe, _Cafr_?”
“That depends upon the measure of your prudence, said I, of which as yet I have no proof that can enable me to judge or decide.”
“Are you the _Christian_ that was at the ruins in the morning? says he.”
“I was at the ruins in the morning, replied I, and _I am a Christian_. Ali Bey calls that denomination of people _Nazarani_, that is the Arabic of Cairo and Constantinople, and I understand no other.”
“I am, said he, going to Girgé, and this holy saint is with me, and there is no boat but your’s bound that way, for which reason I have promised to take him with me.”
By this time the _saint_ had got into the boat, and sat forward; he was an ill-favoured, low, sick-like man, and seemed to be almost blind.