Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/102

82 to wife.’ ‘She is one of thine handmaids,’ answered he; ‘I give her to thee to wife, and I am thy slave.’ Quoth Agib, ‘I desire to look upon this whoreson, Gherib, that I may make an end of him and cause him taste all manner of torments.’ Then he bade give Merdas, to his daughter’s dowry, thirty thousand dinars and a hundred pieces of silk fringed and brocaded with gold and a hundred pieces of bordered stuffs and handkerchiefs and collars of gold. So he went forth with this splendid dowry and set himself to equip Mehdiyeh with all diligence.

Meanwhile, Gherib fared on till he came to El Jezireh, which is the first town of Irak and is a walled and fortified city, and here he called a halt. When the people of the city saw his army encamp before it, they shut the gates and manned the walls, then went to the king of the city, who was called Damigh for that he used to brain the champions in the open field, and told him. So he looked forth from the battlements of the palace and seeing an immense army of Persians encamped before the city, said to the citizens, ‘O folk, what do yonder Persians want?’ ‘We know not,’ answered they.

Now Damigh had among his officers a man called Sebulkifar, keen of wit and subtle as he were a flame of fire; so he called him and bade him go to the stranger host and find out who they were and what they wanted and return quickly. Accordingly, he sped like the wind to the Persian camp, where a company of Arabs met him and said to him, ‘Who art thou and what dost thou want?’ Quoth he, ‘I am a messenger and an ambassador from the lord of the city to your chief.’ So they took him and carried him through the lines of tents and standards, till they came to Gherib’s pavilion and told him of the envoy. He bade them bring him in and they did so, whereupon he kissed the earth before Gherib and wished him length of days