Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/153

129 was seen its like. Then they brought Janshah in to his bride and he abode with her in all delight and solace of life two years, at the end of which time, he said to her, ‘Thy father promised to send us to my native land, that we might pass one year there and the next here.’ ‘I hear and obey,’ answered she and going in to King Shehlan at nightfall, told him what the prince had said. Quoth he, ‘Have patience with me till the first of the month, that I may make ready for your departure.’

Accordingly, they waited till the appointed time, when the King brought out to them a great litter of red gold, set with pearls and jewels and covered with a canopy of green silk, painted in the liveliest colours and embroidered with precious stones, dazzling the eyes with its goodliness. Moreover, he gave his daughter three hundred beautiful damsels to wait upon her and bestowed on Janshah the like number of white slaves of the sons of the Jinn. Then he mounted the litter, with Janshah and Shemseh and their suite, after the prince and princess had taken leave of the latter’s mother and family, and chose out four of his officers to carry the litter.

So the four Marids took it up, each by one corner, and rising with it into the air, flew onward till mid-day, when the King bade them set down the litter and they all alighted. Then they took leave of one another and King Shehlan commended Shemsheh to the prince’s care, and giving them in charge to the Marids, returned to the Castle of Jewels, whilst the prince and princess remounted the litter, and the Marids, taking it up, flew on for ten whole days, in each of which they accomplished thirty months’ journey, till they came in sight of King Teigmous’s capital. Now one of them knew the land of Kabul; so, when he saw the city, he bade the others set down the litter there.

Meanwhile, King Teigmous had been routed and fled

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