Working weary hour after hour in his little shop,--toiling away days,
weeks, and months for a meagre subsistence,--Jacoub finally turned in
disgust from his hammer and forge, and became a "minion of the moon."
He is said, however, to have been reasonable in plunder, and never to
have robbed any of all they had. One night he entered the palace of
Darham, prince of the province of Segestan, and, working diligently,
soon gathered together an immense amount of valuables, with which he
was making off, when, in crossing a very dark room, his foot struck
upon a hard substance, and the misstep nearly threw him down. Stooping,
he picked up that upon which he had trodden. He believed it, from
feeling, to be a precious stone. He carried it to his mouth, touched it
with his tongue,--it was salt! And thus, by his own action, he had
tasted salt beneath the prince's roof,--in Eastern parlance, had
accepted his hospitality, become his guest. He could not rob him.
Jacoub laid down his burden,--robes embroidered in gold upon the
richest materials, sashes wanting only the light to flash with precious
stones worked in the braid, all the costly and rare of an Eastern
prince's palace gathered in one common spoil,--laid it all down, and
departed as silently as he had come.

In the morning the disorder seen told only of attempted robbery.
Diligent search being made, the officers charged with it became
satisfied of Jacoub's complicity. They brought him before the prince.
There, being charged with the burglary, Jacoub at once admitted it, and
told the whole story. The prince, honoring him for his honor, at once
took him into his service, and employed him with entire confidence in
whatever of important or delicate he had to do that needed a man of
truth and courage; and Jacoub from that beginning went up step by step,
till he himself became prince of a province, and then of many