Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 3.djvu/320

292 festivities with Jessamine and had gone in to her and gotten her with child. Ahmed climbed over into his saloon and raising one of the marble slabs of the floor, dug a hole under it and laid the stolen things therein, all save the lantern, which he kept, saying in himself, ‘I will set it before me, when I sit at wine, and drink by its light.’ Then he plastered down the marble slab, as it was, and returning whence he came, went back to his own house. As soon as it was day, the Khalif went out into the sitting-chamber, and finding the eunuchs drugged with henbane, aroused them. Then he put his hand to the chair and found neither dress nor signet nor rosary nor dagger nor lantern; whereat he was exceeding wroth and donning the habit of anger, which was red, sat down in the Divan. So the Vizier Jaafer came forward and kissing the earth before him, said, ‘May God avert the wrath of the Commander of the Faithful!’ ‘O Vizier,’ answered the Khalif, ‘I am exceeding wroth!’ ‘What has happened?’ asked Jaafer; so he told him what had happened and when the Chief of the Police appeared, with Ahmed Kemakim at his stirrup, he found the Khalif sore enraged. As soon as the latter saw him, he said to him, ‘O Amir Khalid, how goes Baghdad?’ And he answered, ‘It is safe and quiet.’ ‘Thou liest!’ rejoined the Khalif. ‘How so, O Commander of the Faithful?’ asked the Amir. So he told him the case and added, ‘I charge thee to bring me back all the stolen things.’ ‘O Commander of the Faithful,’ replied the Amir, ‘the vinegar-worm is of and in the vinegar, and no stranger can get at this place.’ But the Khalif said, ‘Except thou