Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/277

249 Delileh, the thing to do is to spirit away the boy from the maid.’ And she cried out, saying, ‘O disgrace! O ill luck!’ Then, pulling out a brass token, resembling a dinar, she said to the maid, who was a simpleton, ‘Take this dinar and go in to thy mistress and say to her, “Umm el Khair rejoices with thee and is beholden to thee for thy favours, and she and her daughters will visit thee on the day of the assembly and handsel the tiring-women.”’ ‘O my mother,’ said the girl, ‘my young master here catches hold of his mother, whenever he sees her.’ ‘Give him to me,’ answered the old woman, ‘whilst thou goest in and comest back.’

So she gave her the child and taking the token, went in; whereupon Delileh made off with the boy to a by-lane, where she stripped him of his clothes and jewels, saying to herself, ‘O Delileh, it would indeed be a fine trick, even as thou hast cheated the maid and taken the boy from her, so now to pawn him for a thousand dinars’ worth.’ So she repaired to the jewel-bazaar, where she saw a Jew goldsmith seated, with a tray full of jewellery before him, and said to herself, ‘It would be a rare trick to get a thousand dinars’ worth of jewellery from this Jew and leave the boy in pledge with him for it.’ Presently the Jew looked at them and seeing the boy, knew him for the son of the Provost of the Merchants.

Now he was a man of great wealth, but would envy his neighbour, if he sold and he himself did not; so, when he saw Delileh, he said to her, ‘What seekest thou, O my mistress?’ ‘Art thou Master Azariah the Jew?’ asked she, having first enquired his name; and he answered, ‘Yes.’ Quoth she, ‘This boy’s sister, the Provost’s daughter of the Merchants, is a promised bride, and to-day they celebrate her betrothal; and she hath need of jewellery. So give me two pairs of gold ankle-rings and a pair of gold bracelets and a girdle and pearl ear-drops and a