"Thanks! a thousand thanks!" said the stranger, "though I must look
upon this as a gift, a charity, not in the light of a payment. The
service I have rendered might have been afforded by the meanest
slave."

"I know well how to esteem a favor, and how to pay it," answered the
Turk, as he mounted his spirited horse and turned his head towards
the entrance of the city of Constantine. He rode with a free rein
now, and the horse dashed over the level plain like an antelope,
while his rider sat in the saddle like a Marmaluke.

The traveller poured out a quantity of the gold from the purse to
assure himself of its value, and weighing the whole together, said
to himself, "A few moments since and I was a beggar, now I am rich;
after starving for many long weeks, fortune fills my hand with gold,
as if to show me the contrast. It was a piece of singular good luck
for me to meet with that rich old Turk; those fellows from the
desert were giving him sharp practice; it was only the barb that
they wanted. What a cunning eye those rascals have for horseflesh!"
Talking thus to himself, he placed the gold in a secure part of his
dress, though he need hardly have feared that any one would suspect
him of possessing so much of value.

The traveller turned once more to look after the Turk, but he was
already far away, though he could still make out his bearing and
stately carriage as he disappeared. Picking up the staff that had
just served him to such good purpose, he followed in the same path,
which would lead him to Constantinople, ere the sun should set in
the west.