THE CAMEL TRADER OF BABYLON( PART2)

THE CAMEL TRADER OF BABYLON(PART2)

Dabasir, however,  knew no such thing as silence . smiling and waving his hand good- naturedly to the other customers, all of whom knew him, he continued.
"I did hear from a traveler just returned from Urfa of a certain rich man who has a piece of stone cut so thin that one can easily look through it. He puts it in the window of his house to keep it  out of the rains. it is yellow , so this traveler does not relate, and he was permitted to look through it and all the outside world looked strange and not it really is. what do you say to that , Tarkad? Thinkest all the world could look to a man  a different color from what it is ?"
"I dare say ", responded the youth , much more interested in the fat leg of goat placed before Dabasir. "Well I know it to be true for I myself have seen the world all of a different color from what it really is and the tale I am about to tell relates how I came to see it in the right color once more ."
"Dabasir will tell a tale," whispered a neighboring diner to his neighbor , and dragged his rug close . Other diners brought their food and crowded in a semicircle. They crunched noisily in the ears of Tarkad and brushed him with their meaty bones.He alone was without food .Dabasir did not offer to share with him nor even motion him to a small corner of the hard bread that was broken off and had fallen on the platter of the floor.
" The tale that I am about to tell ," began Dabasir pausing to bite a goodly chunk of the goat leg , relates to my early life and how I came to be a camel trader. Didst anyone know that I was once a slave in Syria?.
   A murmur of surprise ran through the audience to which Dabasir listened  with satisfaction.
   " When I was a young man ," continued Dabasir after another vicious onslaught on the goat leg, "I learned from the trade of a father the making  of saddles . I worked with him in his shop and took to myself a wife. Being young and not greatly skilled, I could earn but little , just enough to support my wife in an modest way. I craved good things which I could not afford . Soon I found the shopkeepers would trust me to pay later even though I could not pay at the time.
"Being young and without experience I did not know that he who spends more than he earns is sowing the winds of needless self-indulgence from which he is sure to reap the whirlwinds of trouble and humiliation . So I indulged my whims for fine raiment and bought good luxuries for my good wife and our home, beyond our means.
       " I  paid as I could and for a while all went well. but in time I discovered I could not use my earnings both to live upon and to pay debts. creditors began to pursue me to pay for my extravagant purchases and my life became miserable. I borrowed from my friends but could not repay them either. Things went from bad to worse. My wife returned to her father and I decided to leave Babylon and seek another city where a young man might have better chances .
  " For two years I had a restless and unsuccessful life working for caravan traders. from this I fell in a set of likable robbers who secured the desert for unarmed caravans. such deeds were unworthy of the son of my father , but I was seeing the world through a colored stone and I did not realize to what degradation I had fallen.
   " We met with success on our first trip, capturing a rich haul of gold  and silks and valuable merchandise. This loot we took to Ginir and squandered.
    " The second time we were not so fortunate , just after we had made our capture, we were attacked by the spears men of  a native chief to whom the caravans paid for protection. Our two leaders were killed, and the rest of us were taken to Damascus where we were stripped of our clothing and sold as slaves .
TO BE CONTINUED