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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 that Said was surrounded by five or six who sought to disarm or unseat him, they dashed up, chased away the conspirators, and threatened the men who had acted so treacherously with dismissal from the course.

For more than four months, Said had excited the astonishment of Bagdad by his prowess, when one evening, on returning home from the tournament, he heard some voices which seemed familiar to him. Before him walked four men at a slow pace, apparently discussing some subject together. As Said approached nearer, he discovered that they were talking in the dialect which the men in Selim’s tribe had used in the desert, and suspected that they were planning some robbery. His first thought was to draw back from these men; but when he reflected that he might be the means of preventing some great wrong, he stole up still nearer to listen to what they were saying.

“The gate keeper expressly said it was the street to the right of the bazar,” said one of the men; “he will certainly pass through it to-night, in company with the grand vizier.”

“Good!” added another. “I am not afraid of the grand vizier; he is old, and not much of a hero; but the caliph wields a good sword, and I wouldn’t trust him; there would be ten or twelve of the body-guard stealing after him.”

“Not a soul!” responded a third. “Whenever he has been seen and recognized at night, he was always unattended except by the vizier or the head chamberlain. He will be ours to-night; but no harm must be done him.”

“I think,” said the first speaker, “that the best plan would be to throw a noose over his head; we may not kill him, for it would be but a small ransom that they would pay for his body, and, more than that, we shouldn’t be sure of receiving it.”

“An hour before midnight, then!” exclaimed they, and separated, one going this way, another that.