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a fat man of middle years, the man who had wished to bribe Kamal. When Hassan gravely told the merchant to begin, Hajj Ahmad moved to speak before Kamal, his hands folded before him. His beard was liberally threaded with white and his nose was reddened from too many years of good spirits. His voice, somewhat to Kamal’s surprise, was soft and cultured. Kamal studied him carefully as he spoke.
    “This man, highness,” Hajj Ahmad said with immense dignity, turning slightly to point to a slight, swarthy man older than he, “cheated me of payment. I had spices delivered to his store, and he refused to honor the terms of our agreement.”
    Kamal looked intently into the man’s eyes, as his half-brother, Hamil, and his father, Khar El-Din, had taught him. Unless a man is the greatest scoundrel on earth, you will see the way to justice in his eyes.
    “Why, Hajj Ahmad,” Kamal asked politely, “did you allow the delivery of the spices if the man did not pay you?”
    “One of my sons arranged it, highness. He returned to me with the news”—he nearly spat on the other man—“that this insect refused to pay.”
    The shopkeeper took his turn. “I paid, highness, but the son of Hajj Ahmad refused to give me a receipt for my payment.”
    “A lie, highness,” Hajj shouted.
    Kamal raised his hand for quiet. He gazed closely atboth men, then turned to speak softly to Hassan, who stood beside his chair.
    He said nothing more, and Hassan directed the two men to wait in the antechamber. Kamal rendered his judgments on two other cases, both involving matters of personal status, and thus under the Our’anic law. He then turned to Hassan and nodded to him.
    A sloe-eyed young man, with the beginnings of a paunch as noble as his sire’s, strode into the hall of justice with Hajj Ahmad. Kamal turned to Hajj Ahmad. “This is the son you sent to deliver the spices to the shopkeeper?”
    “Yes, highness.”
    Kamal looked closely at the young man and smiled. “Tell us what happened,” he said.
    The young man glanced briefly toward his father, and told the same story that Hajj Ahmad had recounted, embellishing upon it at the seemingly sympathetic smile from the Bey.
    Kamal said quietly when he had finished, “And you serve your father so well that you would leave his goods with another, without payment?”
    “The shopkeeper said he could not pay me, highness. He said he would send payment the next day to my father, but he did not.”
    Kamal stared down at the huge emerald ring upon his third finger. “Hassan,” he said at last, “the bastinado for the son.”
    “Highness,” Hajj shrieked. “He is my son. He is of my flesh. All his life he has served me faithfully.”
    “Your son has stolen from you, Hajj Ahmad. If under the bastinado he does not admit where he has hidden the shopkeeper’s payment, I will still considerthat justice has been rendered. It appears that you are not a good judge of men. You misjudged your son and you have misjudged me. Do not again attempt to bribe me.”
    Hassan clapped his hands, and two of the Turkish soldiers, their scimitars glittering silver at their sides, dragged the young man away. “Do not let them beat the fool to death,” Kamal said to Hassan. “He is a coward. When he tells his father what he has done with the money, release him. Hajj Ahmad will treat him then as he should be treated, I would wager.”
    When Kamal had finished with the last case, a dispute over a young bride’s dowry, Hassan’s wizened face crinkled into a smile of pride. “I feared, highness,” he said softly, “that a man who has spent so many years away from us would not see truth among us as would one born to it.”
    Kamal laughed. “But you still pray that I will grow wiser as the years pass, do you not, Hassan?”
    “Yes, highness. It is inevitable.” Hassan paused a moment as a slave handed Kamal a glass of fruit juice. “There is another matter, highness,” he said softly.
    Kamal cocked his head