Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/258

236 done eating, I poured water on his hand and gave him wherewith to wipe it. Then we sat talking, after I had set sweetmeats before him, and I said to him, “O my lord, I prithee relieve my mind by telling me why thou eatest with thy left hand. Belike something ails thy right hand?” When he heard my words, he recited the following verses:

Then he drew his right arm out from his sleeve, and behold, it was a stump without a hand, the latter having been cut off at the wrist. I was astonished at this, and he said to me, “Thou seest that my eating with the left hand arose, not from conceit, but from necessity; and there hangs a strange story by the cutting off of my right hand.” “And how came it to be cut off?” asked I. “Know,” answered he, “that I am a native of Baghdad and the son of one of the principal men of that city. When I came to man’s estate, I heard the pilgrims and travellers and merchants talk of the land of Egypt, and this abode in my thought till my father died, when I laid out a large sum of money in the purchase of stuffs of Baghdad and Mosul, with which I set out on my travels and God decreed me safety, till I reached this your city.” And he wept and recited the following verses:

“So I entered Cairo,” continued he, “and put up at the