Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/147

123 my son! Who hath done with thee this thing, that I may lay waste his abiding-place and hasten his destruction, though he were the greatest of the kings of the Jinn?’ Thereupon Saaïc opened his eyes and said, ‘O my father, it was a mortal that slew me in the Valley of Springs.’ Hardly had he made an end of these words, when his soul departed; whereupon his father buffeted his face, till the blood streamed from his mouth, and cried out to two Marids, saying: ‘Go to the Valley of Springs and bring me all who are therein.’ So they betook themselves to the valley in question, where they found Gherib and Sehim asleep and snatching them up, carried them to their King, whom they saw seated on the throne of his kingship, as he were a huge mountain, with four heads on his body, the first that of a lion, the second that of an elephant, the third that of a panther and the fourth that of a lynx. The Marids set them down before Muraash and said to him, ‘These are they whom we found in the Valley of Springs.’

Muraash looked at them with wrathful eyes and puffed and snorted and blew sparks from his nostrils, so that all who stood by feared him. Then said he, ‘O dogs of mankind, ye have slain my son and kindled fire in my heart.’ ‘Who is thy son,’ asked Gherib, ‘and who hath seen him?’ Quoth Muraash, ‘Were ye not in the Valley of Springs and did ye not see my son there, in the guise of a bird, and did ye not shoot at him with arrows, that he died?’ ‘I know not who slew him,’ replied Garib; ‘and by the virtue of the Great God, the One, the Immemorial, who knoweth all things, and of Abraham the Friend, we saw no bird, neither slew we bird nor beast!’

Now Muraash worshipped the Fire, not the All-powerful King; so, when he heard Gherib swear by God and His greatness and by Abraham the Friend, he knew that he was a Muslim and cried out to his people, saying, ‘Bring