Page:Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp.djvu/283

235 This, then, is what befell Alaeddin with the Maugrabin; but Alaeddin, for all this, was not altogether quit of the accursed enchanter, withal his body had been burned and given to the winds; for that the accursed one had a brother viler than he [and yet more skilled] in magic and geomancy and astrology; [nay, they were even] as saith the proverb, “A bean and it was cloven in twain;” and each dwelt in one quarter of the world, so they might fill it with their sorcery and craft and guile. It chanced one day that the Maugrabin’s brother was minded to know how it was with his brother; so he fetched his sand-board and smote it and extracted its figures; then he considered them and examining them throughly, found his brother in the house of the tomb; whereat he mourned and was certified that he was indeed dead. Then he smote the sand a second time, so he might learn how and where he died, and found that he had died in the land of China and by the foulest of deaths and knew that he who slew him was a youth by name Alaeddin. So he rose at once and equipping himself for travel, set out and