Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/167

143 nights till they reached King Terkenan’s capital city and Agib went in to him and kissed the earth before him. Then he wished him what men use to wish to kings and said to him, ‘O King, do thou protect me, so may the sparkling fire and the night with its thick darkness protect and defend thee!’ Terkenan looked at Agib and said, ‘Who art thou and what dost thou want?’ ‘I am Agib, King of Irak,’ replied he; ‘my brother hath usurped my throne and gotten the mastery of the land and the people have submitted themselves to him. Moreover, he has embraced the faith of Islam and ceases not to chase me from country to country; and behold, I am come to seek protection of thee and thy power.’ When Terkenan heard Agib’s words, he rose and sat down and said, ‘By the virtue of the Fire, I will assuredly avenge thee and will let none serve other than my mistress the Fire!’ And he cried out to his son, saying, ‘O my son, make ready to go to Irak and lay it waste and bind all who serve aught but the Fire and punish them and make an example of them; yet slay them not, but bring them to me, that I may ply them with various tortures and make them taste the bitterness of humiliation and leave them a warning to all who will take warning in this time.’ Then he chose out to accompany him fourscore thousand fighting-men on horseback and the like number on giraffes, beside ten thousand lephants,elephants, [sic] bearing on their backs turrets of sandal-wood, trellised with network of gold and railed and plated with gold and silver and guarded with shields of gold and emerald, and store of war-chariots, in each eight men fighting with all kinds of weapons.

Now the prince’s name was Raadshah and he was the champion of his time, having no peer for prowess. So he and his army equipped them in ten days’ time, then set out, as they were a bank of clouds, and fared on two months’ journey, till they came to Oman and encompasedencompassed [sic] it, to