Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/159

135  and said, ‘O man of little wit, thrice have I seen in a dream one who said to me, “There is in Baghdad a house of such a fashion and situate so-and-so, in the garden whereof is a fountain and thereunder a great sum of money buried. Go thither and take it.” Yet I went not; but thou, of thy little wit, hast journeyed from place to place, on the faith of a dream, which was but an illusion of sleep.’ Then he gave him money, saying, ‘This is to help thee back to thy native land.’ Now the house he had described was the man’s own house in Baghdad; so the latter returned thither, and digging underneath the fountain in his garden, discovered a great treasure; and [thus] God gave him abundant fortune. THE KHALIF EL MUTAWEKKIL AND HIS FAVOURITE MEHBOUBEH.

There were in the palace of the Khalif El Mutawekkil ala Allah four thousand concubines, whereof two thousand were Greeks [and other foreigners] and other two thousand native Arabians and Abyssinians; and Obeid ibn Tahir had given him two hundred white girls and a like number of Abyssinian and native girls. Among these latter was a girl of Bassora, Mehboubeh by name, who was of surpassing beauty and elegance and voluptuous grace. Moreover, she played upon the lute and was skilled in singing and making verses and wrote excellent well; so that El Mutawekkil fell passionately in love with her and could not endure from her a single hour. When she saw this, she presumed upon his favour to use him haughtily and capriciously, so that he waxed