Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/82

60 wherein the chairs of the Amirs were set in their order. Then she bade spread in the tilting-ground tables with all manner rich meats and ordered the grandees to eat. So they ate and she said to them, ‘It is my will that, on the first day of each month, ye do on this wise and proclaim in the city that none shall open his shop, but that all the people shall come and eat of the king’s banquet, and that whoso disobeyeth shall be hanged over his own door.’

They did as she bade them, and when came the first day of the next month, Zumurrud went down into the tilting-ground and the crier proclaimed aloud, saying, ‘Ho, all ye people, great and small, whoso openeth shop or house or magazine shall straightway be hanged over his own door; for it behoves you all to come and eat of the king’s banquet.’ Then they laid the tables and the people came in troops; so she bade them sit down at the tables and eat their fill of all the dishes. So they sat down and she sat on her chair of estate, watching them, whilst each thought she was looking at none but him. Then they fell to eating and the Amirs said to them, ‘Eat and be not ashamed; for this is pleasing to the King.’ So they ate their fill and went away, blessing the King and saying, one to the other, ‘Never saw we a Sultan that loved the poor as doth this Sultan.’ And they wished her length of life, whilst Zumurrud returned to the palace, rejoicing in her device and saying in herself, ‘If it please God the Most High, I shall surely by this means happen on news of my lord Ali Shar.’

When the first day of the second month came round, she made the banquet as before and the folk came and sat down at the tables, company by company and one by one. As she sat on her throne, at the head of the tables, watching the people eat, her eye fell on Bersoum, the Nazarene who had bought the curtain of Ali Shar; and she knew him and said in herself, ‘This is the first of my