Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 2.djvu/398

361 and other peoples, that we might waylay merchants and plunder caravans.” Said the two Kings, “Tell us the rarest of the adventures that have befallen thee in kidnapping children and girls.” “O Kings of the age,” replied he, “the strangest thing that ever happened to me was as follows. Two-and-twenty years ago, being at Jerusalem, I saw a girl come out of the khan, who was possessed of beauty and grace, albeit she was but a servant and was clad in worn clothes, with a piece of camel-cloth on her head; so I entrapped her by guile and setting her on a camel, made off with her into the desert, thinking to carry her to my own people and there set her to pasture the camels and collect their dung (for fuel); but she wept so sore, that after beating her soundly, I carried her to Damascus, where a merchant saw her and being astounded at her beauty and accomplishments, bid me more and more for her, till at last I sold her to him for a hundred thousand dinars. I heard after that he clothed her handsomely and presented her to the Viceroy of Damascus, who gave him for her her price thrice told; and this, by my life, was but little for such a damsel! This, O Kings of the age, is the strangest thing that ever befell me.” The two Kings wondered at his story; but, when Nuzhet ez Zeman heard it, the light in her face became darkness, and she cried out and said to her brother, “Sure, this is the very Bedouin who kidnapped me in Jerusalem!” And she told them all that she had endured from him in her strangerhood of hardship and blows and hunger and humiliation, adding, “And now it is lawful to me to slay him.” So saying, she seized a sword and made at him; but he cried out and said, “O Kings of the age, let her not kill me, till I have told you the rare adventures that have betided me.” And Kanmakan said to her, “O my aunt, let him tell his story, and after do with him as thou wilt.” So she held