TWILIGHT LAND

that the other had flown. By-and-by Ali borrowed a
third piece of money, and then a fourth and then a fifth,
so that by the time that six months had passed and gone
he had spent thirty of the hundred pieces that had been
found, and in all that time Abdallah had used not so much
as a pistareen.

But when Ali came for the thirty-and-first loan,
Abdallah refused to let him have any more money. It
was in vain that the elder begged and implored—the
younger abided by what he had said.

Then Ali began to put on a threatening front. “You
will not let me have the money ?” he said.

“No, I will not.”

“You will not?”

“No!”

“Then you shall!” cried Ali; and, so saying, caught
the younger fagot-maker by the throat, and began shaking
him and shouting ‘Help! Help! I am robbed! Iam
robbed!” He made such an uproar that half a hundred
men, women, and children were gathered around them in
less than a minute. ‘Here is ingratitude for you!” cried
Ali. ‘Here is wickedness and thievery! Look at this
wretch, all good men, and then turn away your eyes!
For twelve years have I lived with this young man as a
father might live with a son, and now how does he repay
me? He has stolen allthat I have in the world—a purse
of seventy sequins of gold.”

All this while poor Abdallah had been so amazed that
he could do nothing but stand and stare like one stricken
dumb ; whereupon all the people, thinking him guilty,
dragged him off to the judge, reviling him and heaping
words of abuse upon him.

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