Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 3.djvu/23

7 night. When I grow old and feeble, my master keeps me not with him, but sells me to the knacker, who slaughters me and sells my hide to the tanners and my flesh to the cooks: so do not ask what I suffer from the son of Adam.” “When didst thou leave the son of Adam?” asked the young lion. “At sundown,” replied the camel; “and I doubt not but that, having missed me, he is now in search of me: wherefore, O son of the Sultan, let me go, that I may flee into the deserts and the wilds.” “Wait awhile, O camel,” said the whelp, “till thou see how I will rend him in pieces and give thee to eat of his flesh, whilst I crunch his bones and drink his blood.” “O king’s son,” rejoined the camel, “I fear for thee from the son of Adam, for he is wily and perfidious.” And he repeated the following verse:

Whilst the camel was speaking, there arose a cloud of dust, which opened and showed a short thin old man, with a basket of carpenters’ tools on his shoulder and a branch of a tree and eight planks on his head. He had little children in his hand, and came on at a brisk pace, till he drew near us. When I saw him, O my sister, I fell down for excess of affright; but the young lion rose and went to meet the carpenter, who smiled in his face and said to him, with a glib tongue, “O illustrious king and lord of the long arm, may God prosper thine evening and thine endeavour and increase thy valour and strengthen thee! Protect me from that which hath betided me and smitten me with its mischief, for I have found no helper save only thee.” And he stood before him, weeping and groaning and lamenting. When the whelp heard his weeping and wailing, he said, “I will succour thee from that thou fearest. Who hath done thee wrong and what art thou, O wild beast, whose like I never saw in my life nor saw