Page:Tales from the Arabic, Vol 1.djvu/198



OF THE SPEEDY RELIEF OF GOD.

When it was the eleventh day, the viziers betook them early in the morning to the king’s gate and said to him, “O king, the folk are assembled from the king’s gate to the gibbet, so they may see [the execution of] the king’s commandment on the youth.” So the king bade fetch the prisoner and they brought him; whereupon the viziers turned to him and said to him, “O vile of origin, doth any hope of life remain with thee and lookest thou still for deliverance after this day?” “O wicked viziers,” answered he, “shall a man of understanding renounce hope in God the Most High? Indeed, howsoever a man be oppressed, there cometh to him deliverance from the midst of stress and life from the midst of death, [as is shown by the case of] the prisoner and how God delivered him.” “What is his story?” asked the king; and the youth answered, saying, “O king, they tell that STORY OF THE PRISONER AND HOW GOD GAVE HIM RELIEF.

There was once a king of the kings, who had a high palace, overlooking a prison of his, and he used to hear in the night one saying, ‘O Ever-present Deliverer, O Thou whose relief is nigh, relieve Thou me!’ One day