Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 3.djvu/103

85 for grief. As I sat, repenting me of what I had done, one of my servants came in to me and said, ‘There is a man at the door, who asks for thee; and I know him not.’ So I went out and found at the door a man whom I knew not. I saluted him, and he said to me, ‘I have somewhat to say to thee privily.’ So I brought him in and said to him, ‘What hast thou to say to me?’ Quoth he, ‘Come with me to thine other house.’ ‘Dost thou then know my other house,’ asked I. ‘I know all about thee,’ replied he, ‘and I know that also wherewith God will dispel thy concern.’ So I said to myself, ‘I will go with him whither he will;’ and we went out and walked on till we came to my other house, which when he saw, he said to me, ‘It is without door or doorkeeper, and we cannot sit in it; so come thou with me to another house.’ Accordingly, he went on from place to place and I with him, till the night overtook us. Yet I put no question to him and we ceased not to walk on, till we reached the open country. He kept saying, ‘Follow me,’ and quickened his pace, whilst I hurried after him, heartening myself to go on. Presently; we came to the river-bank, where he took boat with me, and the boatman rowed us over to the other side. Here my guide landed and I after him and he took my hand and led me to a street I had never before entered, nor do I know in what quarter it is. Presently he stopped at the door of a house, and opening, entered and made me enter with him; after which he bolted the door with a bolt of iron and carried me along the vestibule, till he brought me in presence of ten men, brothers, as they were one and the same man. We saluted them and they returned our greeting and bade us be seated; so we sat down. Now I was like to die for very weariness; so they brought rose-water and sprinkled it on my face, after which they gave me to drink and set food before me, of which some of them ate with me. Quoth I to myself, ‘Were