Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/341

311 good tidings, saying, ‘O my lord, the merchant, who is lodged in the haunted house, is alive and well and sits on the bench behind the door.’ When the merchant heard this, he rose joyfully and went to the house, taking breakfast with him; and when he saw Ali, he embraced him and kissed him between the eyes, saying, ‘How hath God dealt with thee?’ ‘Right well,’ answered Ali. ‘I slept upstairs in the marble saloon.’ Quoth the merchant, ‘Did aught come to thee or didst thou see aught?’ ‘No,’ replied Ali; ‘I recited some little of the Koran and slept till morning, when I arose and after making the ablution and praying, came down and seated myself on the bench behind the door.’ ‘Praised be God for safety!’ exclaimed the merchant, then left him and presently sent him slaves and servants, black and white and male and female, with furniture. They swept the house from top to bottom and furnished it magnificently, after which three black slaves and the like number of white and four slave-girls abode with him, to serve him, and the rest returned to their master’s house. When the merchants heard of him, they sent him presents of all manner of things of price, even to meat and drink and clothes, and took him with them in the market, saying, ‘When will thy baggage arrive?’ And he answered, ‘After three days it will come.’

Accordingly, when the three days had elapsed, the servant of the first treasure came to him and said, ‘Go forth and meet thy harem, together with the treasure I have brought thee from Yemen, part of which is by way of costly merchandise; but the slaves, black and white, and the horses and camels and mules are all of the Jinn.’ [sic] (Now the genie, when he betook himself to Cairo, found Ali’s wife and children in sore straits for nakedness and hunger; so he carried them forth of the town in a travelling-litter and clad them in sumptuous raiment of that which was in the treasure of Yemen.) When Ali heard