Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 2.djvu/348

311 tilting with spears and shooting with arrows, and thus also did his cousin Kuzia Fekan; for they were wont to go forth at the first of the day and return at nightfall, when she would go in to her mother and he to his, to find her sitting weeping by his father’s bed. Then he would tend his father till daybreak, when he would go forth again with his cousin, according to their wont. Now Zoulmekan’s sufferings were long upon him and he wept and recited these verses:

When he had made an end of repeating these verses he laid his head on his pillow and his eyes closed and he slept. In his sleep he saw one who said to him, “Rejoice for thy son shall fill the lands with justice and have the mastery over them and men shall obey him.” Then he awoke gladdened by this happy omen that he had seen, and after a few days, death smote him, whereat great grief fell on the people of Baghdad, and gentle and simple mourned for him. But time passed over him, as if he had never been, and Kanmakan’s estate was changed; for the people of Baghdad set him aside and put him and his family in a place apart. When his mother saw this, she fell into the sorriest of plights and said, “Needs must I go to the Grand Chamberlain, and I hope for the favour of the Subtle, the All-Wise One!” Then she betook herself to the house of the Chamberlain, who was now become Sultan, and found him sitting upon his couch. So she