The Magic Sack
’Know, 0 Fortunate Ones,’ Lateef said, as he sat in his retirement under a tree instructing novices, ‘that without thieves there would be occasions on this Earth of ours when justice is not done, and when the innocent suffer. In our very ancient thieves’ lore there is a moral tale Which has fortified the spirit and nourished the acquisitiveness of many a laggard in the ranks of thiefdom: helping to maintain our numbers and preventing the development of backsliding. This is the tale of the pious man and the thief.
One day a thief, feeling that he should keep his hand in, as it were, and not finding anything much worth stealing, came upon a simple man of piety astride a donkey, carrying a lamp in his hand and with a chicken at his side for rations. The thief watched him until the ancient had settled down for the night under a bush. Then he crept up and took the donkey, the lamp and the bird. When the philosopher woke, he lamented the loss of his goods, and cursed whoever had taken them. Though pious and a philosopher, this man was no enlightened being. First, he was attached to the material things of this world; second, he did not even suspect that there might be some advantage for him in his loss. Even when he reached the nearby town, and found that the Mongols had slaughtered every man, woman and child in it during the night, he did not perceive what the thief, lurking nearby, came to understand: ‘In the night the donkey might have brayed, and attracted the attention of the murderers. The lamp, if the ancient had woken and lit it, would have given his position away. And the chicken might have crowed, and therefore been an instrument of the old man’s death.’
‘Lying’,continued the veteran robber to this open-mouthed audience, ‘is often said to be a bad habit. But to us it is less than important, because it is derivative. Lying, 0 Sons of Good Fortune, is only a form of thieving. Why, I well recall an instance when lying brought me one of my most interesting exploits, though there was a smaller profit than from a really spectacular theft.
I was hidden in the roof of a house one evening, waiting for an opportunity to slip in and steal something. I had seen the man of the house ride away at sunset, and I expected that his wife would soon go to bed, when I would be able to ransack most of the rooms. ‘Suddenly, there was a gentle knock on the door. The woman admitted her lover and sat him at a table on which she soon arranged all manner of luscious dishes. ‘They were about to partake of this elegant meal, when they heard the trumpet of the husband’s outrider announce his unexpected return. The woman, in a panic, pushed her lover into a large closet, and piled the viands onto shelves beside him, motioning him to stay silent until she could effect his safe release.
As I continued to watch, fascinated, the husband came into the room and informed his wife that the man whom he had gone to meet had been called away and had sent a messenger to tell him this. “The courier intercepted our cavalcade and saved us a profitless journey,” he said, settling down to smoke a pipe. Then he asked for food and his wife, after darting a guilty look towards the cupboard, said that there was none in the house. ‘Immediately - such is the agility of mind of the master-thief - I had an inspiration. I climbed quickly down from the roof and knocked boldly at the front door. When admitted by the servant, I strode purposefully to the Divan, where the master of the house sat, looking askance at me. ‘’’Have no fear, Honourable Sir,” I said, in my most mellifluous voice, “for I am a noted seer and magician. As I was passing this house I had a supernatural prompting that I should place my thaumaturgic powers at the owner’s disposal. Am I to assume that I have the pleasure of addressing him, in the person of your distinguished self?”
Of course, the man muttered confusedly that he was, indeed, the master there. “In that case,” I continued, “my perceptions tell me that you are hungry and should be provided with a banquet which befits your high rank and enormous piety.” I said to the wife, who had been standing there with her mouth open, “Madam, if you open the door of that closet, you will find a magical meal, just cooked, which should suffice his Excellency here: he upon whom the benign Huma bird has cast the shadow of its illustrious and miracle-working wings.” She hesitated, and her husband, overcome with curiosity - and perhaps hunger - stood up, walked to the door and opened it himself. There, of course, he saw tray upon tray ofthe choicest delicacies, prepared for his wife’s lover. He made as if to withdraw a tray of kabobs, when I raised my arm imperiously. “Stay!” I cried; “it ill befits one of your Eminence’s pedigree and high potential that he should serve himself. Look deeper into the cupboard and you should find there a spirit in human form, whom I designate your. He will do all the work. .
He peered inside and, sure enough, there was the wife’s lover who clambered out and began to carry the food from the shelves to the table. Now the husband and wife, attended by the servant, ate and drank, and thanked me for my generosity. ‘’’It is nothing,” I said modestly; “it is my duty to obey my promptings. And that reminds me that another supernatural whisper tells me that the lady here owes seven gold coins to a poor man in the town. I am to be the messenger who restores the money to him. You do owe it, do you not, dear madam? I asked, turning to her and giving her a covert wink.” “‘Yes, yes, of course I do. It had quite slipped my mind,” she muttered, and gave me the gold.’
The disciples twittered with excitement at this wonderful tale, heard from the lips of the Master thief himself. But Lateef silenced them with a baleful glare. ‘It is not proper, in the presence of the illuminati of thiefdom,’ he growled, ‘that novices should observe anything other than silence. For this infraction of decorum I am tempted not to continue the tale.’ Chastened, the audience begged him to forgive them and to continue. Lateef said: ‘You may think that I had been well enough paid for my evening’s work. But something told me that, if I were to tarry but a short space of time longer, even more golden metal moon-faces would jingle in my purse that night. So I waited, applying the spur of silence to the withers of my host’s curiosity. ‘At length the husband said, “Tell me, O great and redoubtable magician: do these supernatural promptings come to you without any long and arduous training? Or do you have to work hard and ceaselessly to acquire your remarkable powers of perception?” ‘I said, carelessly, “It would be churlish if any detail of even such recondite knowledge were to be withheld from an illustrious magnate such as has just deigned to address me! I shall therefore tell all, omitting no detail.” ‘I then took out from my sleeve the close-woven, silken robber’s sack which I always carried rolled up there, and displayed it to him. “This,” I said, “O One whose intellect would descry the mark of an ant’s foot upon a black rock at midnight, this is the sole apparatus which is employed in the miracle which you have witnessed this evening.” ‘I could almost feel his greed as he handled it. Then he said, “I would give anything to possess an object such as this.” “‘Know, O Sandalwood-Scented Patrician,” I at once responded, “that in magical circles it would be regarded as a solecism beyond redemption were I so to fail in courtesy as not to offer the magical sack to you as a present, viewing your condescending to accept it a signal mark of distinction towards my miserable and unworthy self.”
He was absolutely delighted, and pressed into my resisting hand a bag containing five hundred gold pieces. After warning him that all the magic would depart from the sack if it were used more than once in twenty-four hours, I took my leave. Nor did I forget to say that the servitor whom I had conjured up was a spiteful jinn who should be beaten regularly, and kept tied up as much as possible.’
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