Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/77

57 language, whereupon they all fell down from their stools and did her homage. But she signed to them to sit, and they did so.

Then she saluted Hasib in human speech and he returned her salutation; and she said to him with fluent speech, ‘Have no fear of us, O youth. I am the Queen of the Serpents and their Sultaness.’ When he heard this, he took heart and she bade the serpents bring him food. So they brought apples and grapes and pomegranates and pistachio-nuts and filberts and walnuts and almonds and bananas and set them before him, and the Queen said, ‘Welcome, O youth! What is thy name?’ ‘My name is Hasib Kerimeddin,’ answered he; and she rejoined, ‘O Hasib, eat of these fruits, for we have no other meat, and fear nothing from us.’ So he ate his fill and praised God the Most High. Then they took away the tray from before him, and the Queen said to him, ‘O Hasib, tell me whence thou art and how camest thou hither.’ So he told her his story from first to last, adding, ‘God [only] knows what will betide me after this!’ Quoth the Queen, ‘Nothing but good shall betide thee: but, O Hasib, I would have thee abide with me awhile, that I may tell thee my history and acquaint thee with the rare adventures that have come to my knowledge.’ ‘I hear and obey,’ answered he; and she said, ‘Know then, O Hasib, that THE ADVENTURES OF BELOUKIYA.

There was once in the city of Cairo a wise and pious king of the children of Israel, who was devoted to the study of books of learning, and he had a son named Beloukiya. When he grew old and weak and was nigh upon death, his grandees and officers of state came in to him, to salute him, and he said to them, “O folk, know