Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/124

102 rejoiced in them and bade them return to their people and expound Islam to them; but they said, ‘O our lord, we will never leave thee, whilst we live; but we will go and fetch our families and return to thee.’ And Gherib said, ‘Go, and join me at the city of Cufa.’ So Jemrcan and his comrades returned to their camp and expounded Islam to their women and children, who all to a soul embraced the true faith, after which they dismantled their houses and struck their tents and set out for Cufa, driving before them their horses and sheep and camels.

Meanwhile Gherib returned to Cufa, where the horsemen met him and carried him into the city in state. He entered his palace and sat down on his throne, with his officers standing on either hand. Then the spies entered and informed him that his brother Agib had made his escape and taken refuge with Julned ben Kerker, the lord of the city of Oman and land of Yemen; whereupon Gherib bade his troops make ready to set out in three days’ time. Then he expounded Islam to the thirty thousand men he had taken in the first battle and exhorted them to profess and take service with him. Twenty thousand embraced the faith, but the rest refused and he slew them. Then came Jemrcan and his tribe and kissed the earth before Gherib, who bestowed on him a splendid dress of honour and made him captain of his vanguard, saying, ‘O Jemrcan, mount with the chiefs of thy kinsmen and twenty thousand horse and fare on before us to the land of Julned ben Kerker.’ ‘I hear and obey,’ answered Jemrcan and set forward with his men, leaving the women and children of the tribe in Cufa.

Then Gherib passed in review the harem of Merdas and his eye lit upon Mehdiyeh, who was among the women, whereupon he fell down in a swoon. They sprinkled rose-water on his face, till he came to himself, when he embraced Mehdiyeh and carried her into a privy chamber,