He saw in the gang of
red-caps nothing but a crew of pirates burying their spoils, and
his cupidity was once more awakened by the possibility of at length
getting on the traces of some of this lurking wealth. Indeed, his
infected fancy tinged everything with gold. He felt like the
greedy inhabitant of Bagdad when his eyes had been greased with the
magic ointment of the dervish, that gave him to see all the
treasures of the earth.[2] Caskets of buried jewels, chests of
ingots, and barrels of outlandish coins seemed to court him from
their concealments, and supplicate him to relieve them from their
untimely graves.
[1] Aspect.
[2] See Story of the Blind Man, Baba Abdalla, in Arabian Nights'
Entertainment. An inhabitant of Bagdad, Asiatic Turkey, meets with
a dervish, or Turkish monk, who presents him with a vast treasure
and with a box of magic ointment, which, applied to the left eye,
enables one to see the treasures in the bosom of the earth, but on
touching the right eye, causes blindness. Having applied it to the
left eye with the result predicted, he uses it on his right eye, in
the hope that still greater treasures may be revealed, and
immediately becomes blind.
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