When I awoke I found that we had indeed come to Perdóndaris, that
famous city. For there it stood upon the left of us, a city fair and
notable, and all the more pleasant for our eyes to see after the
jungle that was so long with us. And we were anchored by the
marketplace, and the captain's merchandise was all displayed, and a
merchant of Perdóndaris stood looking at it. And the captain had his
scimitar in his hand, and was beating with it in anger upon the deck,
and the splinters were flying up from the white planks; for the
merchant had offered him a price for his merchandise that the captain
declared to be an insult to himself and his country's gods, whom he
now said to be great and terrible gods, whose curses were to be
dreaded. But the merchant waved his hands, which were of great
fatness, showing his pink palms, and swore that of himself he thought
not at all, but only of the poor folk in the huts beyond the city to
whom he wished to sell the merchandise for as low a price as possible,
leaving no remuneration for himself. For the merchandise was mostly
the thick toomarund carpets that in the winter keep the wind from the
floor, and tollub which the people smoke in pipes. Therefore the
merchant said if he offered a piffek more the poor folk must go
without their toomarunds when the winter came, and without their
tollub in the evenings, or else he and his aged father must starve
together. Thereat the captain lifted his scimitar to his own throat,
saying that he was now a ruined man, and that nothing remained to him
but death. And while he was carefully lifting he beard with his left
hand, the merchant eyed the merchandise again, and said that rather
than see so worthy a captain die, a man for whom he had conceived an
especial love when first he saw the manner in which he handled his
ship, he and his aged father should starve together and therefore he
offered fifteen piffeks more.