Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/343

313 and women. When the merchants returned home, they all sent presents to Ali, according to their conditions; and their wives likewise sent presents to his wife, so that there came to them great plenty of slaves, black and white and male and female, and store of all manner goods, such as grain and sugar and so forth, beyond count. As for the landlord of the house, he abode with Ali and quitted him not, but said to him, ‘Let the slaves and servants take the mules and the other cattle into one of my other houses, to rest.’ Quoth Ali, ‘They set out again to-night for such a place.’ Then he gave them leave to go forth the city, that they might set out on their journey at nightfall; whereupon they took leave of him forthright and departing the city, flew off through the air to their several abodes.

Ali and the merchant sat together till a third of the night was past, when the latter returned to his own house and Ali went up to his wife and children and greeted them, saying, ‘What hath befallen you all this time?’ So she told him what they had suffered of hunger and nakedness and toil, and he said, ‘Praised be God for safety! How did ye come?’ ‘O my lord,’ answered she, ‘I was asleep, with my children, yesternight, when suddenly one raised us from the ground and carried us through the air, without doing us any hurt, nor did he give over flying with us, till he set us down in a place as it were a Bedouin camping-place, where we saw laden mules and a litter borne upon two great mules, and round them servants, boys and men. So I said to them, “Who are ye and what are these loads and where are we?” And they answered, “We are the servants of the merchant Ali ibn Hassan of Cairo, who has sent us to fetch you to him at Baghdad.” Quoth I, “Is it far or near, hence to Baghdad?” “Near,” answered they; “there lies but the darkness of the night between us and the city.” Then they mounted us in the litter, and on the morrow, we found