Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/165

139 Hasib was now master of lands and houses and shops, and all the merchants of the city foregathered with him and he told them all that had befallen him. He became one of the chief of them and abode thus awhile, till, one day, as he was walking in the town, he chanced to pass the door of a bath, whose keeper was one of his friends. When the bathman saw him, he ran up to him and saluted him and embraced him, saying, ‘Favour me by entering the bath and washing, that I may show thee hospitality.’ Hasib refused, alleging that he had taken a solemn oath never again to enter the bath; but the bathman was instant with him, saying, ‘Be my three wives triply divorced, an thou enter not and be washed!’ When Hasib heard him thus conjure him by the triple oath of divorcement, he was confounded and replied, ‘O my brother, hast thou a mind to ruin me and make my children orphans and lay a load of sin upon my neck?’ But the man threw himself at his feet and kissed them, saying, ‘I conjure thee to enter, and be the sin on my neck!’ Then all the people of the bath set upon Hasib and dragging him in, pulled off his clothes.

So, seeing no help for it, he sat down against the wall and began to pour water on his head; but hardly had he done so, when a score of men accosted him, saying, ‘Come with us to the Sultan, for thou art his debtor.’ Then they despatched a messenger to the Sultan’s Vizier, who straightway took horse and rode, attended by three-score men, to the bath, where he alighted and going in to Hasib, saluted him and said, ‘Welcome to thee!’ Then he gave the bathman a hundred dinars and mounting Hasib on a charger he had brought with him, returned with him to the Sultan’s palace, where he set food before him and clad him in two dresses of honour, each worth five thousand dinars. When they had eaten and drunken and washed their hands, the Vizier said to Hasib, ‘Know