Page:Tales from the Arabic, Vol 1.djvu/190

166 with him are in sore straits and not one of them desireth to look on him, gentle or simple.’

[When the king returned to his palace,] he went in to his wife Shah Khatoun and said to her, ‘I give thee the glad news of thine eunuch’s return.’ And he told her what had betided and of the youth whom he had brought with him. When she heard this, her wits fled and she would have cried out, but her reason restrained her, and the king said to her, ‘What is this? Art thou overcome with grief for [the loss of] the treasure or [for that which hath befallen] the eunuch?’ ‘Nay, as thy head liveth, O king!’ answered she. ‘But women are fainthearted.’ Then came the servant and going in to her, told her all that had befallen him and acquainted her with her son’s case also and with that which he had suffered of stresses and how his uncle had exposed him to slaughter and he had been taken prisoner and they had cast him into the pit and hurled him from the top of the citadel and how God had delivered him from these perils, all of them; and he went on to tell her [all that had betided him], whilst she wept.

Then said she to him, ‘When the king saw him and questioned thee of him, what saidst thou to him?’ And he answered, ‘I said to him, “This is the son of a nurse who belonged to us. We left him little and he grew up; so I brought him, that he might be servant to the king,”’ Quoth she, ‘Thou didst well.’ And she charged him to be instant in the service of the prince. As for the king, he redoubled in kindness to the eunuch and appointed the youth a liberal allowance and he abode going in to the