"
Ithobal went to the door of his tent and commanded that his treasurer
should attend him, bringing money. Presently he came, and at his lord's
bidding weighed out one hundred ounces of gold.
"You are right, Phoenician," said Ithobal; "I always pay my debts,
sometimes in gold and sometimes in iron. Be careful that I owe you no
more, lest you who to-day are paid in gold, to-morrow may receive the
iron, weighed out in the fashion of which I have spoken. Now, begone."
Metem gathered up the treasure, and hiding it in his ample robe, bowed
himself from the royal presence and out of the thorn-hedged camp.
"Without doubt I have been in danger," he said to himself, wiping his
brow, "since at one time that black brute, disregarding the sanctity
of an envoy, had it in his mind to torture and to kill me. So, so, king
Ithobal, Metem the Phoenician is also an honest merchant who 'always pays
his debts,' as you may learn in the market-places of Jerusalem, of Sidon
and of Zimboe, and I owe you a heavy bill for the fright you have given
me to-day. Little of Elissa's company shall you have if I can help it;
she is too good for a cross-bred savage, and if before I go from these
barbarian lands I can set a drop of medicine in your wine, or an arrow
in your gizzard, upon the word of Metem the Phoenician, it shall be done,
king Ithobal."
*****
When Metem reached Sakon and the envoys, he found that a message had
already been sent to them announcing that Ithobal would meet them
presently upon the plain outside his camp.
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