Now the Sultan of the Indies, curious to see a young prince with such
strange tastes, sent an ambassador to my father, laden with rich
presents, and a warm invitation to visit his court. My father, who was
deeply anxious to secure the friendship of so powerful a monarch, and
held besides that a little travel would greatly improve my manners and
open my mind, accepted gladly, and in a short time I had set out for
India with the ambassador, attended only by a small suite on account of
the length of the journey, and the badness of the roads. However, as
was my duty, I took with me ten camels, laden with rich presents for
the Sultan.
We had been travelling for about a month, when one day we saw a cloud
of dust moving swiftly towards us; and as soon as it came near, we
found that the dust concealed a band of fifty robbers. Our men barely
numbered half, and as we were also hampered by the camels, there was no
use in fighting, so we tried to overawe them by informing them who we
were, and whither we were going. The robbers, however, only laughed,
and declared that was none of their business, and, without more words,
attacked us brutally. I defended myself to the last, wounded though I
was, but at length, seeing that resistance was hopeless, and that the
ambassador and all our followers were made prisoners, I put spurs to my
horse and rode away as fast as I could, till the poor beast fell dead
from a wound in his side. I managed to jump off without any injury,
and looked about to see if I was pursued. But for the moment I was
safe, for, as I imagined, the robbers were all engaged in quarrelling
over their booty.