Presently, I entered a street that had no issue and
said in myself, "Verily, we are God's and to Him we return! I
have exposed myself to destruction. If I retrace my steps, I
shall arouse suspicion." Then I espied, at the upper end of the
street, a negro standing at his door; so I went up to him and
said to him, "Hast thou a place where I may abide awhile of the
day?" "Yes," answered he, and opening the door, admitted me into
a decent house, furnished with carpets and mats and cushions of
leather. Then he shut the door on me and went away; and I
misdoubted me he had heard of the reward offered for me and said
in myself, "He has gone to inform against me." But, as I sat
pondering my case and boiling like the pot over the fire, my host
came back, followed by a porter loaded with meat and bread and
new cooking-pots and goblets and a new jar and other needful
gear. He took them from the porter and dismissing him, said to
me, "I make myself thy ransom! I am a barber-surgeon, and I know
it would mislike thee to eat with me, because of the way in which
I get my living; so do thou shift for thyself with these things
whereon no hand hath fallen." Now I was anhungred; so I cooked
me a pot of meat, whose like I mind me not ever to have eaten;
and when I had done my desire, he said to me, "O my lord, God
make me thy ransom! Art thou for wine? Indeed, it gladdens the
soul and does away care.
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