DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5828#0225
A MOHAMMEDAN ROMANCE.
191
the soldier after a severe run of more than two coss,
and having gravely put to him the question which
had caused them to fight, he at once perceiving their
stupidity, as gravely replied, that he had saluted the
greatest fool among them.
Perplexed at this answer, they knew not how to
decide ; still neither would relinquish his pretensions
to the honour of having been especially distinguished
by the soldier. Each continued to maintain that he
was the person for whom the salutation, about which
they had been disputing, was intended, and to so
great a length did they carry their controversy, that
each claimed to be greatest fool of the four, the
trooper having decided that to him his salutation
was given. The contest for supremacy in fatuitv
soon became as vehement as before, and might have
ended seriously had not the Brahmin, who had first
spoken, made a second proposal, which was that
they should lay their several claims before a conclave
°f Brahmins, to be held at a neighbouring hamlet,
where the dispute would be finally settled by an
equitable decision.
This proposal was agreed to, and, on reaching the
village, the four disputants repaired to a choultry, in
which a number of Brahmins assembled to hear their
cause, and pronounce judgment. When the appellants
appeared before their jurists, the president, upon hear-
ing the cause of their dispute, declared, that as it
was not a matter to be settled upon positive testi-
mony, he and his co-functionaries must judge of it
circumstantially, or rather by inference ; he, there-
tore, pronounced that each of the four Brahmins
12
191
the soldier after a severe run of more than two coss,
and having gravely put to him the question which
had caused them to fight, he at once perceiving their
stupidity, as gravely replied, that he had saluted the
greatest fool among them.
Perplexed at this answer, they knew not how to
decide ; still neither would relinquish his pretensions
to the honour of having been especially distinguished
by the soldier. Each continued to maintain that he
was the person for whom the salutation, about which
they had been disputing, was intended, and to so
great a length did they carry their controversy, that
each claimed to be greatest fool of the four, the
trooper having decided that to him his salutation
was given. The contest for supremacy in fatuitv
soon became as vehement as before, and might have
ended seriously had not the Brahmin, who had first
spoken, made a second proposal, which was that
they should lay their several claims before a conclave
°f Brahmins, to be held at a neighbouring hamlet,
where the dispute would be finally settled by an
equitable decision.
This proposal was agreed to, and, on reaching the
village, the four disputants repaired to a choultry, in
which a number of Brahmins assembled to hear their
cause, and pronounce judgment. When the appellants
appeared before their jurists, the president, upon hear-
ing the cause of their dispute, declared, that as it
was not a matter to be settled upon positive testi-
mony, he and his co-functionaries must judge of it
circumstantially, or rather by inference ; he, there-
tore, pronounced that each of the four Brahmins
12