Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/34

16 the man, and Aboul Muzeffer rejoined, “I have with me five dirhems, belonging to an orphan lad. Wilt thou sell me the ape for that sum?” “He is thine,” answered the ape-merchant. “May God give thee a blessing of him!” So the Sheikh paid the money and his slaves took the ape and tied him up in the ship.

Then they loosed sail and made for another island, where they cast anchor; and there came down divers, who dived for pearls and corals and other jewels. So the merchants hired them for money and they dived. When the ape saw this, he did himself loose from his bonds and leaping off the ship’s side, dived with them; whereupon quoth Aboul Muzeffer, “There is no power and no virtue but in God the Most High, the Supreme! The ape is lost to us, by the [ill] fortune of the poor fellow for whom we bought him.” And they despaired of him; but, after awhile, the company of divers rose to the surface, and with them the ape, with his hands full of jewels of price, which he threw down before Aboul Muzeffer, who marvelled at this and said, “There hangs some great mystery by this ape!”

Then they cast off and sailed till they came to a third island, called the Island of the Zunonj, who are a people of the blacks, that eat human flesh. When the blacks saw them, they boarded them in canoes and taking all in the ship, pinioned them and carried them to their king who bade slaughter certain of the merchants. So they slaughtered them and ate their flesh; and the rest passed the night in prison and sore concern. But, when it was [mid]night, the ape arose and going up to Aboul Muzeffer, did off his bonds. When the others saw him free, they said, “God grant that our deliverance may be at thy hands, O Aboul Muzeffer!” But he replied, “Know that he who delivered me, by God’s leave, was none other than this ape; and I buy my release of him at a thousand dinars.”