Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/157

133 amazed, and cried out, saying, ‘God is Most Great! I am Gherib, King of Irak. There is no faith save the faith of Abraham the Friend!’

When Bercan heard Gherib’s words, he said, ‘This is he who seduced my cousin from his faith; so, by the virtue of my faith, I will not sit down on my throne till I have cut off the head of this Gherib and made an end of his life and forced my cousin and his people back to their faith: and whoso baulketh me, I will destroy him.’ Then he mounted a paper-white elephant, as he were a tower plastered with gypsum, and goaded him with a pike of steel, whereupon the elephant trumpeted and made for the middle of the field. When Bercan drew near Gherib, he cried out to him, saying, ‘O dog of mankind, what made thee come into our land, to debauch my cousin and his people and pervert them from one faith to another? Know that this day is the last of thy worldly days.’ And Gherib answered, saying, ‘Avaunt, O vilest of the Jinn!’ Therewith Bercan drew a javelin and poising it in his hand, cast it at Gherib; but it missed him. So he threw a second javelin at him; but Gherib caught it in mid-air and hurled it at the elephant. It smote him on the flank and came out on the other side, whereupon the beast fell down dead and Bercan was cast to the ground, like a great palm-tree. Before he could stir, Gherib smote him with the sword of Japhet flatlings on the nape of the neck, and he fell down in a swoon; whereupon the Marids swooped down on him and bound him.

When Bercan’s people saw their king a prisoner, they drove at the others, seeking to rescue him, but Gherib and the true-believing Jinn fell upon them and bravo for Gherib! indeed that day he pleased God who answereth prayer and slaked his vengeance with the enchanted sword! Whomsoever he smote, he clove him in sunder and before his soul could depart, he became a heap of ashes in the