He made his suit for the reverend father's
intercession with the Prince himself, and with his
father the Nawaub, in the most persuasive terms.
The Fakir listened to him with an inflexible and
immovable aspect, similar to that with which a
wooden saint regards his eager supplicants. There
was a second pause, when, after resuming his
pleading more than once, Hartley was at length
compelled to end it for want of matter.
The silence was broken by the elder Fakir, who,
after shooting a glance at his younger companion
by a turn of the eye, without the least alteration
of the position of the bead and body, said, ``The
unbeliever has spoken like a poet. But does be
think that the Nawaub Khan Hyder Ali Behauder
will contest with his son Tippoo the Victorious,
the possession of an infidel slave?''
Hartley received at the same time a side glance
from Barak, as if encouraging him to plead his own
cause. He suffered a minute to elapse, and then
replied,---
``The Nawaub is in the place of the Prophet, a
judge over the low as well as high. It is written,
that when the Prophet decided a controversy between
the two sparrows concerning a grain of rice,
his wife Fatima said to him, `Doth the Missionary
of Allah well to bestow his time in distributing
justice on a matter so slight, and between such
despicable litigants?'---`Know, woman,' answered
the Prophet, ` that the sparrows and the grain of
Rice are the creation of Allah.
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