some, rich, and brave stranger. All who had seen him, even those
over whom he had triumphed, were charmed by his well-bred manners. He
even heard his own praises sounded in the shop of Kalum-Bek, and it was
only deplored that no one knew where he lived.

The next week, Said found at the house of the fairy a still finer
costume and still more costly weapons. Half Bagdad had rushed to the
square, while even the caliph looked on from a balcony; he, too,
admired Almansor, and at the conclusion of the tournament he hung a
large gold medal, attached to a gold chain, about the youth's neck, as
a mark of his favor.

It could not very well be otherwise than that this second and still
more brilliant triumph of Said's should excite the envy of the young
men of Bagdad. "Shall a stranger," said they to one another, "come here
to Bagdad, and carry off all the laurels? He will now boast in other
places that among the flower of Bagdad's youth there was not one who
was a match for him." They therefore resolved, at the next tournament,
to fall upon him, as if by chance, five or six at a time.

These tokens of discontent did not escape Said's sharp eye. He noticed
how the young men congregated at the street corners, whispered to one
another, and pointed angrily at him. He suspected that none of them
felt very friendly toward him, with the exception of the caliph's
brother and the grand vizier's son, and even they rather annoyed him by
their questions as to where they might call on him, how he occupied his
time, what he found of interest in Bagdad, etc., etc. It was a singular
coincidence that one of these young men, who surveyed Said-Almansor
with the bitterest looks, was no other than the man whom Said had
thrown down when the assault was made on Kalum-Bek a few weeks before,
just as the man was about to tear out the unfortunate merchant's beard.
This man looked at Said very attentively and spitefully. Said had
conquered him several times in the tournament; but this would not
account for such hostile looks, and Said began to fear lest his figure
or his voice had betrayed him to this man as the clerk of Kalum-Bek--a
discovery that would expose him to the sneers and anger of the people.

The project which Said's foes attempted to carry out at the next
tournament failed, not only by reason of Said's caution and bravery,
but by the assistance he received from the caliph's brother and the
grand vizier's son. When these two young men saw th