“I would give that imp of Satan twenty purses a-year to be my partner,” muttered the _dellâl_ inaudibly to himself, as he turned away and withdrew with the two rejected greys.
The merchant returned to his house in high spirits, and willingly acceded to Hassan’s request that he should have sole charge of the new purchase. Hassan led the horse into the stable, fed and groomed it with his own hands, and in the course of a few days they were the best friends imaginable.
These events created no little sensation in Alexandria, and Hassan’s skill, courage, and his remarkable beauty of form and feature were the general subject of conversation among those who had witnessed the merchant’s purchase of the restive horse. All manner of speculations were afloat as to who or whence he was, for those who had most nearly observed him declared that, although his dress and language proclaimed the Bedouin Arab, his features seemed to be those of a Georgian or some northern race.
Many questions were addressed to Hadji Ismael on the subject by his friends, but he was either unable or unwilling to satisfy their curiosity. All that they could learn was that the youth had been sent to the merchant with a letter of recommendation from his old acquaintance Sheik Sâleh, and that he was to be employed in the purchase of the collection of horses to be sent to Constantinople.
Meanwhile Hassan passed his time more agreeably than he had expected, for he had abundance of liberty and exercise in his new vocation, and was treated with the greatest kindness and confidence both by the merchant and by the chief clerk. One remarkable feature they found in his character, that under no circumstances whatever did he deviate in the slightest degree from the truth. Whether money was concerned, or the relation of an event, they always found his statements confirmed, even in the most minute particular. He seemed, also, to have no care or thought of the acquisition of money, and these two features of character were so rare in Alexandria that some of the merchant’s friends, when speaking of his young _protégé_, were in the habit of shaking their heads and touching their foreheads significantly with the index-finger, thereby indicating that probably he was somewhat deranged.