Page:Tales from the Arabic, Vol 1.djvu/189

165 troops were assembled. Then he acquainted the king with this and he bade one of his servants [descend into the pit]. So the man descended and brought out the youth [and the eunuch], aswoon.

They cut their bonds and poured wine into their gullets, till they came to themselves, when the king looked at the eunuch and recognizing him, said, ‘Harkye, such an one!’ ‘Yes, O my lord the king,’ replied the man and prostrated himself to him; whereat the king marvelled with an exceeding wonder and said to him, ‘How camest thou to this place and what hath befallen thee?”thee?’ [sic] Quoth the eunuch, ‘I went and took out the treasure and brought it hither; but the [evil] eye was behind me and I unknowing. So the thieves took us alone here and seized the money and cast us into this pit, so we might die of hunger, even as they had done with other than we; but God the Most High sent thee, in pity to us.’

The king marvelled, he and his company, and praised God the Most High for that he had come thither; after which he turned to the eunuch and said to him, ‘What is this youth thou hast with thee?’ ‘O king,’ answered he, ‘this is the son of a nurse who belonged to us and we left him little. I saw him to-day and his mother said to me, ‘Take“Take [sic] him with thee.’thee.” [sic] So I brought him with me, that he might be a servant to the king, for that he is an adroit and quickwitted youth.’ Then the king fared on, he and his company, and the eunuch and the youth with them, what while he questioned the former of Belehwan and his dealing with his subjects, and he answered, saying, ‘As thy head liveth, O king, the folk