Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 2.djvu/397

360 lay on these three and set the rest free, after taking from them all the goods in their possession and giving them to the merchant, who examined them and found that a fourth of his stock was missing. The two Kings engaged to make good his loss, whereupon he pulled out two letters, one in the handwriting of Sherkan and the other in that of Nuzhet ez Zeman; for this was the very merchant who had bought Nuzhet ez Zeman of the Bedouin, as hath been before set forth. Kanmakan examined the letters and recognized the handwriting of his uncle Sherkan and his aunt Nuzhet ez Zeman; then (for that he knew the latter’s history) he went in to her with that which she had written and told her the merchant’s story. She knew her own handwriting and recognizing the merchant, despatched to him guest-gifts (of victual and what not) and commended him to her brother and nephew, who ordered him gifts of money and slaves and servants to wait on him, besides which the princess sent him a hundred thousand dirhems in money and fifty loads of merchandise, together with other rich presents. Then she sent for him and made herself known to him, whereat he rejoiced greatly and kissed her hands, giving her joy of her safety and union with her brother and thanking her for her bounty: and he said to her, “By Allah, a good deed is not lost upon thee!” Then she withdrew to her own apartment and the merchant sojourned with them three days, after which he took leave of them and set out to return to Damascus. After this, the two Kings sent for the three robber-chiefs and questioned them of their condition, whereupon one of them came forward and said, “Know that I am a Bedouin, who use to lie in wait, by the way, to steal children and virgin girls and sell them to merchants; and this I did for many a year until these latter days, when Satan incited me to join these two gallows-birds in gathering together all the riff-raff of the Arabs