Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/178

150 safety and reunite me with my father, I will assuredly bestow upon him all manner of bounties and entreat him with the utmost favour.’

By this time the night had overtaken him and he sat on the roof, till he was assured that all in the palace slept; and indeed hunger and thirst were sore upon him, for that he had not tasted food since he parted from his father. So he said in himself, ‘Surely, the like of this palace will not lack of victual,’ and leaving the horse there, went in quest of somewhat to eat. Presently, he came to a stair and descending it, found himself in a court paved with white marble and alabaster, that shone in the light of the moon. He marvelled at the place and the goodliness of its fashion, but heard no sound and saw no living soul and stood in perplexity, looking right and left and knowing not whither he should go. Then said he to himself, ‘I cannot do better than return to where I left my horse and pass the night by it; and as soon as it is day, I will mount and depart.’ However, as he stood talking to himself, he espied a light within the palace, and making towards it, found that it came from a candle that stood before a door of the palace, at the head of an eunuch, as he were one of the Afrits of Solomon or a tribesman of the Jinn, longer than a plank and wider than a bench. He lay asleep before the door, with the pommel of his sword gleaming in the flame of the candle, and at his head was a budget of leather hanging from a column of granite.

When the prince saw this, he was affrighted and said, ‘I crave help from God the Supreme! O my God, even as Thou hast [already] delivered me from destruction, vouchsafe me strength to quit myself of the adventure of