About Two Months Afterwards, The King Returned From Hunting Wild-Hogs,
An Animal Which Is Held In Abhorrence By All Mahometans, And Which Kind
Of Venison, Therefore, The King Was In Use To Distribute Among The
Christians And Rajaputs.
On this occasion, the king sent for the
converted catechumen above mentioned, and commanded him to take up a hog
for his master, which no Mahometan will touch.
He did so, but on going
out of the court gate, he was so hooted at by the Mahometans, that he
threw down his burden in a ditch, and went home; concealing what had
passed from his master. Some four days afterwards, the Armenian being on
duty in presence of the king, he asked him if the hog he had sent him
was good meat. The Armenian replied, that he had not seen or heard of
any. The king therefore immediately ordered the convert to be sent for,
who confessed that he had not carried home the hog, as being mocked by
the Mahometans for touching so great an abomination, he had for shame
thrown it away. On this the king observed, "By your Christian law there
is no difference of meats. Are you ashamed of your law, or do you
outwardly forsake it to flatter the Mahometans? I now see that you are
neither a good Christian nor a good Mahometan, but a knave dissembling
with both. When I believed you sincere, I gave you a pension, which I
now take from you for your dissimulation, and I farther condemn you to
receive an hundred stripes." These were presently paid him, instead of
his money; and the king desired all to take warning by this example,
that, having given liberty of conscience to all religions, he would have
all to adhere to what they professed.
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