Page:Fairy tales from the Arabian nights.djvu/381

 his gown, and showed the sultan that he was a man only from the head to the waist, and that the other half of his body was black marble.

The sultan was strangely surprised when he saw the deplorable condition of the young man. 'That which you show me,' said he, 'while it fills me with horror, so excites my curiosity that I am impatient to hear your history, which, no doubt, is very extraordinary, and I am persuaded that the pond and the fishes have some part in it; therefore I beg you to tell it me. You will find some comfort in doing so, since it is certain that unfortunate people obtain some sort of ease in telling their misfortunes.'

'I will not refuse you this satisfaction,' replied the young man, 'though I cannot do it without renewing my grief. But I give you notice beforehand, to prepare your ears, your mind, and even your eyes, for things which surpass all that the most extraordinary imagination can conceive.

'You must know, my lord,' he began, 'that my father Mahmoud was king of this country. This is the kingdom of the Black Isles, which takes its name from the four little neighbouring mountains; for those mountains were formerly islands: the capital, where the king, my father, had his residence, was where that pond now is.

'The king, my father, died when he was seventy years of age; I had no sooner succeeded him than I married, and the lady I chose to share the royal dignity with me was my cousin. Nothing was comparable to the good understanding between us, which lasted for five years. At the end of that time I perceived that the queen, my cousin, took no more delight in me.

'One day I was inclined to sleep after dinner, and lay down upon a sofa. Two of her ladies came and sat down, one at my head, and the other at my feet, with fans in their hands to moderate the heat, and to hinder the flies from troubling me. They thought I was fast asleep, and spoke very low; but I only shut my eyes, and heard every word they said.

'One of them said to the other, "Is not the queen much in the wrong not to love such an amiable prince as this?"

'"Certainly," replied the other; "for my part, I do not understand it. Is it possible that he does not perceive it? "