Alnaschar slept well enough all
night; but next morning, when he came out of his house, twenty of
the magistrate's men seized him. Come along with us, said they;
our master would speak with you. My brother prayed them to have
patience for a moment, and offered them a sum of money to let him
escape; but, instead of listening to him, they bound him, and
forced him to go along with them. They met in the street an old
acquaintance of my brother's, who stopped them a while, and asked
them why they seized my brother, and offered them a considerable
sum to let him escape, and to tell the magistrate that they could
not find him. But this would not do; so he was carried before the
magistrate.
When the officers brought him before the magistrate, he asked him
where he had the goods which he carried home last night? Sir,
replied Alnaschar, I am ready to tell you all the truth; but
allow me first to have recourse to your clemency, and to beg your
promise that nothing shall be done to me. I give it you, said the
magistrate. Then my brother told him the whole story without
disguise, from the time the old woman came into his house to say
her prayers, to the time the lady made her escape, after he had
killed the black, the Greek slave, and the old woman; and as for
what he had carried to his house, he prayed the judge to leave
him part of it for the five hundred pieces of gold that he was
robbed of.
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