Page:Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp.djvu/269

223 I will have thee dress and tire thyself and put away melancholy from thee; and when the accursed Maugrabin cometh to thee, do thou receive him with ‘Welcome and fair welcome’ and go to meet him with a smiling face and bid him come sup with thee and profess to him that thou hast forgotten thy beloved Alaeddin and thy father and that thou lovest him with an exceeding love. Moreover, do thou seek of him wine, and that red, and make him a show of all joy and gladness and drink to his health. Then, when thou hast filled him two or three cups of wine, [watch] till thou take him off his guard; then put him this powder in the cup and fill it up with wine, and an he drink it, he will straightway turn over on his back, like a dead man.” When the Lady Bedrulbudour heard Alaeddin’s words, she said! to him, “This is a thing exceeding hard on me to do; but it is lawful to slay this accursed, so we may be delivered from his