Page:Sinbad the sailor & other stories from the Arabian nights.djvu/256

 his skill (of which I had heard, as he had heard of mine, from afar) against that of an ape. Knowing all the science of the game, much of which I had myself discovered, I tested his skill by various openings, saying within myself, "This game I will not win, provided that I learn his measure." It so fell out that I lost, and the King, noting the character of my play, was pleased at his success. "Another game," said he, resetting the pieces.

This time, knowing his play, I held back in my moves, and awaited his openings. At length he made one which I knew, for I myself had invented it. "That," said he, "is the opening of Prince Eymar, whose treatise I have studied. I will allow thee a space to study it, and reply." What was his surprise when I replied immediately with the counter move! At that, from excess of wonder, he was unstrung, and, knowing not the following moves as well as I, he lost. Again we played, a third time, and I, seeing from his eagerness that he had still something to spring upon me, fell in with his moves until we reached the position which was the crowning point of my treatise. At length it came to a pass which I well knew. There was only one way out—a pawn in a distant corner of the board. I moved it readily. "By Allah!" he cried, upsetting the board with all that was on it, "thou art the most intelligent—as well as the ugliest—ape I ever saw." Then, to appease him, I bethought myself of the battlefield of sixty-four squares, and wrote the following stanza on the edge of the board:

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