The Achmed Abdullah Megapack by Achmed Abdullah

Author:Achmed Abdullah
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Fantasy, Horror, Ghost Stories, victorian fiction
ISBN: 9781434446459
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2013-04-26T04:00:00+00:00

A YARKAND SURVEY

And Ibrahim said: Power is a dangerous weapon, my dear. The many use it only to their own advantage and to split the noses of their enemies. But the few who use it for the good of the many, their names shall be exalted and their memory kept ever green through lasting monuments of stone and brass, cunningly carved and ornamented, so that unborn generations may see and admire.

You, Abdullah, you read my heart as an open book, and you know how I dislike to speak about myself. But still—let me tell you what happened when Yakoob Beg the Wise, the Fount of the Just Law, ruled the land beyond the snows of the north.

I had come in the glittering retinue of the Beg who, quick to read talent and to appreciate devotion, looked at me with favor and appointed me Governor of the Province of Yarkand, and not only governor, but also assessor and collector of taxes, high judge, and commander of the local contingent.

I had come up from the passes with seven annas in my waistband, and accompanied by a woman whom I had found in the harem of a Yuszufai mollah who had given me hospitality. But once Governor of Yarkand, I invested my scanty fortune most judiciously, and I prospered exceedingly, both in money and wives.

Allah Kureem! How I prospered!

Eh? through iniquity and oppression? No, no. Am I an Armenian that I should grip fangs of cruelty in the bowels of the land which the All-Merciful has given into my keeping? No, no.

First of all I made a personal inspection of the district under my command. There was hardly a merchant, cultivator, or horse-dealer, rich or poor, powerful or weak, Orthodox or Soofi, whose lands and belongings I did not scrutinize with eyes of honest discernment, until finally, after comparing and studying and figuring, I had acquired exact knowledge of the personal affairs of every householder within my jurisdiction. And assisted by my faithful Hindu clerk, the pandit Rakhal Chandar Tawari, I used this knowledge with miraculous results.

How? How?

Are you a little lisping babe that you should ask me how?

Heart of my heart, was I not the governor, the assessor, and collector of taxes, the commander of the local contingent, the power-clothed representative of Yakoob Beg the Wise, the Fount of the Just Law?

And though I say it who should not, I was always willing to pour forth the broad stream of benevolence and to assist the struggling peasants with personal loans, so that they could pay their taxes and keep out of prison.

And Fate had endowed me with such miraculous skill in the making out of accounts, that a man to whom I had loaned fifty rupees might go on making monthly payments of twenty rupees for three years without reducing his debt by a single anna!

Great are the virtues of compound interest, and indeed, my books proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the debt, instead of being reduced, had grown

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