Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/361

333 sale!’ ‘O my lord Noureddin,’ replied the broker, ‘I have not forgotten my business. Is not this Enis el Jelis, whom thy father bought of me for ten thousand dinars?’ ‘Yes,’ said Noureddin. Then the broker went round to the merchants, but found they were not all assembled; so he waited till the rest had arrived and the market was full of all kinds of female slaves, Turks and Franks and Circassians and Abyssinians and Nubians and Egyptians and Tartars and Greeks and Georgians and others; when he came forward and said, ‘O merchants! O men of wealth! every round thing is not a walnut nor every long thing a banana; every thing red is not meat nor everything white fat. O merchants, I have here this unique pearl, this unvalued jewel! What price shall I set on her?’ ‘Say four thousand five hundred dinars,’ cried one. So the broker opened the biddings for her at that sum and as he was yet calling, behold, the Vizier Muïn ben Sawa passed through the market and seeing Noureddin standing in a corner, said to himself, ‘What doth the son of Khacan here? Has this gallows-bird aught left to buy girls withal?’ Then he looked round and seeing the broker crying out and the merchants round him, said to himself, ‘Doubtless he is ruined and has brought the damsel Enis el Jelis hither to sell her! What a solace to my heart!’ Then he called the crier, who came up and kissed the ground before him, and he said to him, ‘Show me the girl thou art crying for sale.’ The broker dared not cross him, so he answered, ‘O my lord, in the name of God!’ And brought the damsel and showed her to him. She pleased him and he said, ‘O Hassan, what is bidden for this damsel?’ ‘Four thousand five hundred dinars,’ replied the broker, ‘as an upset price.’ Quoth the Vizier, ‘I take that bid on myself.’ When the merchants heard this, they hung back and dared not bid another dirhem, knowing what they did of