There he bade Tsamanni fling a purse to the crouching beggars--
for is it not written in the Most Perspicuous Book that of alms ye shall
bestow what ye can spare, for such as are saved from their own greed
shall prosper, and whatever ye give in alms, as seeking the face of
Allah shall be doubled unto you?
Submissive to the laws as the meanest of his subjects, Asad dismounted
and passed on foot into the s?k. He came to a halt by the well, and,
facing the curtained penthouse, he blessed the kneeling crowd and
commanded all to rise.
He beckoned Sakr-el-Bahr's officer Ali--who was in charge of the slaves
of the corsair's latest raid and announced his will to inspect the
captives. At a sign from Ali, the negroes flung aside the camel-hair
curtains and let the fierce sunlight beat in upon those pent-up
wretches; they were not only the captives taken by Sakr-el-Bahr, but
some others who were the result of one or two lesser raids by Biskaine.
Asad beheld a huddle of men and women--though the proportion of women
was very small--of all ages, races, and conditions; there were pale
fair-haired men from France or the North, olive-skinned Italians and
swarthy Spaniards, negroes and half-castes; there were old men, young
men and mere children, some handsomely dressed, some almost naked,
others hung with rags. In the hopeless dejection of their countenances
alone was there any uniformity. But it was not a dejection that could
awaken pity in the pious heart of Asad.
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