Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 3.djvu/195

175 her the fifty jars; and she opened one and looking at the olives, said to the captain, ‘I will take the whole fifty and pay you their value, whatever it may be.’ ‘By Allah, O my lord,’ answered he, ‘they have no value in our country and the fifty jars may be worth some hundred dirhems; but their owner tarried behind us, and he is a poor man.’ ‘And what are they worth here?’ asked she. ‘A thousand dirhems,’ replied he. ‘I will take them at that price,’ quoth she and bade carry the fifty jars to the palace. When it was night, she called for a jar of olives and opened it, there being none present but herself and the princess Heyat en Nufous. Then, taking a dish, she turned into it the contents of the jar, when behold there fell out into the dish with the olives a heap of red gold and she said to Heyat en Nufous, ‘This is nought but gold!’ So she sent for the rest of the jars and found each one full of gold and scarce enough olives in the whole fifty to fill one jar. Moreover, she sought among the gold and found the talisman, which she took and examined and knew for that which Kemerezzeman had taken from off the riband of her trousers; whereupon she cried out for joy and fell down in a swoon. When she revived, she said in herself, ‘Verily, this talisman was the cause of my separation from my beloved Kemerezzeman; but now it is an omen of good.’ Then she showed it to Heyat en Nufous and said to her, ‘This was the cause of separation and now, please God, it shall be the cause of reunion.’ As soon as it was day, she seated herself on her throne and sent for the captain, who came and kissed the ground before her. Quoth she, ‘Where didst thou leave the owner of these olives?’ ‘O King of the age,’ answered he, ‘we left him in the land of the Magians and he is a gardener there.’ ‘Except thou bring him to me,’ said she, ‘thou knowest not the harm that awaits thee and thy ship.’ Then she bade seal up the merchants’ storehouses and said to them, ‘The owner