Page:Tales from the Arabic, Vol 2.djvu/100

80 and bade them marry the old king’s daughter and sister to his own sons; so they married them, after the king had made a bride-feast three days and displayed their brides to them from eventide to peep of day. Then the two princes went in to their brides and did away their maidenhead and loved them and were vouchsafed children by them.

As for the king their father, he abode with his wife, their mother, what while God (to whom belong might and majesty) willed, and they rejoiced in reunion with each other. The kingship endured unto them and glory and victory, and the king continued to rule with justice and equity, so that the people loved him and still invoked on him and on his sons length of days and durance; and they lived the most delightsome of lives till there came to them the Destroyer of Delights and Sunderer of Companies, He who layeth waste the palaces and peopleth the tombs; and this is all that hath come down to us of the story of the king and his wife and children. Nor,” added the vizier, “if this story be a solace and a diversion, is it pleasanter or more diverting than that of the young man of Khorassan and his mother and sister.”

When King Shah Bekht heard this story, it pleased him and he bade the vizier go away to his own house.