Why do you wait?
You are dismissed and--alive." Metem looked steadily at the tablets which he still held in his hand.
"I have heard," he said humbly, "that the king Ithobal, the great king, always pays his debts, and as I--an outlander--shall be leaving Zimboe shortly under his safe conduct, I desire to close this small account." 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.