Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/40

22 Allah, I will not kill her, till I hear the rest of the story!” So they lay together till morning, when the King went out to his hall of audience and the Vizier came in to him, with the winding-sheet under his arm. Then the King ordered and appointed and deposed, without telling the Vizier aught of what had happened, much to the former’s surprise, until the end of the day, when the Divan broke up and he retired to his apartments.

And when it was the second night

Dunyazad said to her sister Shehrzad, “O my sister, finish us thy story of the merchant and the genie.” “With all my heart,” answered she, “if the King give me leave.” The king bade her “Say on.” So she began as follows: “It has reached me, O august king and wise governor, that the first old man continued his story as follows: ‘O lord of the Kings of the Jinn, as I was about to kill the calf, my heart failed me and I said to the herdsman, “Keep this calf with the rest of the cattle.” So he took it and went away. Next day the herd came to me, as I was sitting by myself, and said to me, “O my lord, I have that to tell thee will rejoice thee, and I claim a reward for good news.” Quoth I, “It is well.” And he said, “O merchant, I have a daughter, who learnt the art of magic in her youth from an old woman who lived with us, and yesterday, when I took home the calf that thou gavest me, she looked at it and veiled her face and fell a-weeping. Then she laughed and said to me, ‘O my father, am I become of so little account in thine eyes that thou bringest in to me strange men?’ ‘Where are the strange men?’ asked I. ‘And why dost thou weep and laugh?’ Quoth she, ‘The calf thou hast there is our master’s son, who has been enchanted, as well as his mother, by his father’s wife. This is why I laughed: and I wept for his mother, because his father slaughtered her.’ I wondered