Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/225

203 these thousand dinars are thy dowry. Glory be to God! Would I knew how this had come about!” Then he opened the amulet and found therein a paper in the handwriting of his brother Noureddin; and when he saw his writing, he knew it and kissed it again and again, weeping and making moan for his brother. Then he read the scroll and found in it a record of the dates of Noureddin’s marriage with the Vizier’s daughter of Bassora, his going in to her, her conception and the birth of Bedreddin Hassan, and the history of his brother’s life till his death. At this he wondered and was moved to joy and comparing the dates with those of his own marriage and the birth of his daughter the Lady of Beauty, found that they agreed in all respects. So he took the scroll and carrying it to the Sultan, told him the whole story from first to last, at which the King wondered and commanded the case to be at once set down in writing. The Vizier abode all that day awaiting his nephew, but he came not; and when seven days were past and he could learn nothing of him, he said, “By Allah, I will do a thing that none has done before me!” So he took pen and ink and paper and drew a plan of the bride-chamber, showing the disposition of all the furniture therein, as that the alcove was in such a place, this or that curtain in another, and so on with all that was in the room. Then he folded the paper and laid it aside, and causing all the furniture to be taken up and stored away, took Bedreddin’s purse and turban and clothes and locked them up with an iron padlock, on which he set a seal, against his nephew’s coming. As for the Lady of Beauty, she accomplished the months of her pregnancy and bore a son like the full moon, resembling his father in beauty and grace. They cut his navel and blackened his eyelids with kohl and committed him to the nurses,