Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/59

41 faggot on his back, and sat down by the spring to drink, when, behold, back came the horseman, in great concern, and said to him, ‘Where is the bag [with the thousand dinars] that was here?’ ‘I know nothing of it,’ replied the woodcutter, whereupon the other drew his sword and smote him and killed him. Then he searched his clothes, but found nothing; so he left him and went away.

When the prophet saw this, he said, ‘O Lord, this man hath been slain unjustly, for another had the thousand dinars.’ But God answered him, saying, ‘Busy thyself with thy service, for the ordering of the affairs of the universe is none of thine affair. Know that the horseman’s father had despoiled the second man’s father of a thousand dinars; so I gave the son possession of his father’s money. As for the woodcutter, he had slain the horseman’s father, wherefore I enabled the son to avenge himself.’ Then said the prophet, ‘Verily, there is none other god than Thou! Glory to Thee! Thou [alone] knowest the hidden things.’ Moreover, one of the poets hath made the following verses on the matter: