Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/78

58 that the hour is at hand of my departure from this world to the next, and I have no charge to lay on you, save to commend my son to your care.” Then said he, “I testify that there is no god save God,” and heaving one sigh, departed the world, the mercy of God be on him! They laid him out and washed him and buried him in great state. Then they made his son Beloukiya king in his stead; and he ruled the kingdom justly and the people had peace in his time.

It befell one day that he entered his father’s treasures, to look about him, and coming upon a hidden door, opened it and found himself in a little closet, wherein stood a column of white marble. On the top of the column was a coffer of ebony, which he opened and saw therein a casket of gold, containing a book. He read the book and found therein a description of our lord Mohammed (whom God bless and preserve) and how he should be sent in the latter days and be the lord of the first and the last: and his heart was taken with love of him. So he assembled all the notables of the scribes and diviners and priests of the children of Israel and read the book to them, adding, “O folk, needs must I bring my father out of his grave and burn him.” “Why wilt thou burn him?” asked they, and he answered, “Because he hid this book from me and imparted it not to me.” [sic] (Now the old king had compiled it from the Pentateuch and the Book of Abraham and had hidden it in his treasury and imparted it to none.) “O King,” rejoined they, “thy father is dead; his body is in the dust and his affair is in the hands of his Lord; thou shalt not take him forth of his tomb.” So he knew that they would not suffer him to do this thing and leaving them, repaired to his mother, to whom said he, “O my mother, I have found, in one of my father’s treasuries, a book containing a description of Mohammed (whom God bless and keep), a prophet who