Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/385

357 the Khalif, rose to his feet and kissed the letter three times, then read it and said, ‘I hear and obey God and the Commander of the Faithful!’ Then he summoned the four Cadis and the Amirs and was about to divest himself of the kingly office, when in came the Vizier Muïn ben Sawa. The Sultan gave him the Khalif’s letter, and he read it, then tore it in pieces and putting it in his mouth, chewed it and threw it away. ‘Out on thee!’ exclaimed the Sultan (and indeed he was angry); ‘what made thee do that?’ ‘By thy life, O our lord the Sultan,’ replied Muïn, ‘this fellow hath never seen the Khalif nor his Vizier: but he is a gallows-bird, a crafty imp who, happening upon a blank sheet in the Khalif’s handwriting, hath written his own desire in it. The Khalif would surely not have sent him to take the Sultanate from thee, without a royal mandate and a patent appended thereto, nor would he have omitted to send with him a chamberlain or a vizier. But he is alone and hath never come from the Khalif, never! never!’ ‘What is to be done?’ said the Sultan. ‘Leave him to me,’ replied the Vizier: ‘I will send him in charge of a chamberlain to the city of Baghdad. If what he says be true, they will bring us back royal letters-patent and a diploma of investiture; and if not, I will pay him what I owe him.’ When the Sultan heard the Vizier’s words, he said, ‘Take him.’ So Muïn carried Noureddin to his own house and cried out to his servants, who threw him down and beat him, till he swooned away. Then he caused heavy shackles to be put on his feet and carried him to the prison, where he called the gaoler, whose name was Cuteyt, and said to him, ‘O Cuteyt, take this fellow and throw him into one of the underground cells in the prison and torture him night and day.’ ‘I hear and obey,’ replied he, and taking Noureddin into the prison, locked the door on him. Then he bade sweep a bench behind the door and laying