Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/263

235 dresses of honour and made them captains of the watch for Baghdad, Ahmed of the right hand and Hassan of the left hand. Moreover, to Ahmed he committed the ward of [the district] without [the city walls] and appointed each of them a stipend of a thousand dinars a month and forty men to be at their commandment. So Ahmed and Hassan went forth in company of the Amir Khalid, the Master of Police, attended each by his forty followers on horseback and preceded by the crier, proclaiming aloud and saying, ‘By order of the Khalif, none is captain of the watch of the right hand but Ahmed ed Denef and none is captain of the watch of the left hand but Hassan Shouman, and it behoveth all to give ear to their word and pay them respect.’

Now there was in the city an old woman called Delileh the Crafty, who had a daughter by name Zeyneb the Trickstress. They heard the proclamation aforesaid and Zeyneb said to her mother, ‘O my mother, see yonder fellow, Ahmed ed Denef. He came hither from Cairo, a fugitive, and played the double-dealer in Baghdad till he foisted himself into the Khalif’s favour and is now become captain of the watch of the right hand, whilst that mangy knave Hassan Shouman is captain of the left hand, and each has a monthly wage of a thousand dinars and a table spread morning and evening, whilst we abide unemployed and neglected in this house, without estate and without honour, and have none to ask of us.’

Now Delileh was a past mistress in all manner of craft and trickery and double-dealing; she could wile the very serpents out of their holes and Iblis himself might have learnt deceit of her. Her father had been governor of the carrier-pigeons to the Khalif and used to rear them to carry letters and messages, wherefore each bird in time of need was dearer to the Khalif than one of his sons; and in this capacity he had a stipend of a thousand dinars a