and thus no one intruded on my final study of the fragment I had unearthed.
I contrived to decipher the inscription in the remaining half of the central medallion I'd stumbled across. And although I'm no scholar, I can in a pinch hammer out a few words of Arabic, and get enough to supply at least the context of an inscription.
at the feet of my Lord I fall; I have bowed
me down seven times with breast and back;
and all that the King said to me,
well, well do I hear! Abimilki, a
servant of the King am I, and
the dust of thy two feet!
This much I could gather; the upper half of the inscription, in the missing upper half of the medallion, doubtless contained the preliminary honorifics, and perhaps even the name of the prince to whom the rug had been presented. Presented where? At Trebizond, Damascus, Isphahan, Baghdad? What king? Shall Abbas? Nadir Shall? Who had received the servile protestations of this princeling, Abimilki?
The opening of the daily auction broke into my reflections. I caught the eye of the porter I had bribed, and then found a seat. "Royal" Bijars and "Royal" Sarouks were extolled and lauded with all the dramatic art and perjury at the command of auctioneers hailing from the Near East. And under the floodlights, those pseudo-royal rugs did have a magnificent appearance.
"How much am I offered for this Royal Sarouk? This magnificent, lustrous carpet! It is worth a thousand dollars! Am I offered seven hundred? Seven hundred? They are getting scarcer every day! A genuine, Royal Sarouk! Do I hear five hundred? Is there no one here who really knows rugs? This is not a floor covering, this is—four hundred? Thank you. I am offered four hundred dollars. That shouldn't even buy the fringe! Will someone give me five hundred? Did I hear four fifty? Seventy-five. . . . Eighty? Thank you. Who offers five hundred? . . ."
And thus through the heap of rugs. Then came some Boukhara saddle-bags, one at a time; then more "Royal" Bijars, and Kashans, and Kirmans. Valiantly the plump Mephisto, pleading, groaning, holding out for just one more dollar, perjured his way through the stacks beside the rostrum. And all the while the porter paraded up and down the aisle, giving the bidders a glimpse of the articles in question.
Finally, after an hour's exhorting, after the perspiration was trickling down his cheeks and glistening on his brow, after fatigue had left its marks on the chubby auctioneer, the porter handed him the fragment I had discovered.
Under that powerful light, its suave magnificence glowed forth through the coating of dust and dirt. Devil take that light! But thanks to the nap's being worn so close, the now weary auctioneer, somewhat dulled by fatigue, did not sense that he held the remains of a silken rug in his hands; nor did the silver bullion ground below the medallion betray itself. The porter had handed him the end nearest the original center, where the medallion reached from border to border, and where consequently there was no silver ground to meet his fingertips. Then, scarcely had the orator opened his harangue, the porter snatched the precious fabric and was dashing down the aisle, holding it as well knotted up as he could contrive without seeming to do so.
Noble African! Nevertheless, it was a ticklish moment.
"How much am I offered for this antique rug?" he had begun, flashing it beneath the flaring floodlight, before yielding it to the eager porter. "Yes, sir,
