o heed to the interruption.

'A sin committed thoughtlessly,' said he, 'is light compared with one
which thou hast hatched and planned.'

'Nay, O beloved, a sin is a sin, appointed so by the Most High; and
the duty of a man is to avoid it. The hurt to man's salvation is the
same, however he approach it,' said an old man in the audience. 'If I
cut my hand, is the wound less, is it not rather likely to be
more--for being thoughtless?'

There was a murmur of applause as all eyes turned on this objector,
whose likeness could not be distinguished in the gloaming.

I spoke in approbation of the view expressed, and the old man,
emboldened, laughed:

'To lie is bad, to kill is bad, to steal is bad. Our Lord destroy this
rogue of an Intention, which plain men cannot catch nor understand!'

'Nay, listen!' Suleyman became persuasive and profoundly earnest, as
was his manner always under opposition. 'Thou hast not altogether
caught my meaning. I say a man should trust in the Most High, not
think too much beforehand of his ways. By thinking beforehand, he may
form a bad intention, since man's thoughts are naturally fallible.
Let him think afterwards, thus he will learn to shun such snares in
future, and by repentance place a good work to his credit. Men learn
wisdom from their sins, not from their righteous deeds. And the
consciousness of sin, the knowledge that they may at any moment fall
into it, preserves them from the arrogance of goodness.'

'There may be some small grain of sense in what thou sayest,' chuckled
the objector, 'but not enough to make sin righteous, nor yet to
abrogate the sacred law.'

Suleyman pursued unheeding: 'I have a rare thing, which will show you
what I mean.

'A new judge had been appointed to the Holy City. He was departing
from Stambul by ship to take up his appointment. On the quay, a Jew of
his acquaintance came to him with reverence, and begged him kindly to
convey a basket of bastirma to his (the Jew's) son at the Holy City,
which the Jews in their own language call Jerusalem. You all know what
bastirma is. It is dried and salted mutton--very tasty--a dish of
which the Turks are most inordinately fond. The Cadi graciously
consented, bidding his major-domo take the basket, and bestow it
carefully among the things. The Jew departed. The Cadi and his party
journeyed till they reached their destination, where, upon arrival,
they discovered a young Jew inquiring earnestly about a basket of
b