Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/301

273 So he opened the door and Ali entered and saluted Ahmed, who embraced him, and the forty saluted him. And Ahmed gave him a suit of clothes, saying, ‘When the Khalif made me captain, he clothed my lads and I kept this suit for thee.’ Then they seated him in the place of honour and setting on meat and drink, ate and drank and made merry till the morning, when Ahmed said to Ali, ‘Look thou walk not about Baghdad, but abide here.’ ‘Why so?’ asked Ali. ‘I came not hither to be shut up, but to look about me and divert myself.’ ‘O my son,’ rejoined Ahmed, ‘think not that Baghdad is like Cairo. Baghdad is the seat of the Khalifate: sharpers abound in it and rogueries spring in it as plants spring in the earth.’ So Ali abode in the barrack three days, at the end of which time Ahmed said to him, ‘I wish to present thee to the Khalif; that he may assign thee an allowance.’ But he answered, saying, ‘When the time comes.’ So he let him go his own way.

One day, as Ali sat in the barrack, his breast became straitened and his soul troubled and he said to himself, ‘Come, let us walk awhile in Baghdad and lighten my heart.’ So he went out and walked from street to street, till he came to the bazaar, where he entered a cookshop and ate the morning-meal; after which he went out to wash his hands. Presently, he saw forty slaves, with bonnets of felt and cutlasses of steel, come walking, two by two; and last of all came Delileh the Crafty, riding on a mule and clad in a coat of mail, with a gilded helmet on her head. Now she was returning from the Divan to the khan of which she was portress; and when she espied Ali, she looked at him fixedly and saw that he resembled Ahmed ed Denef in height and breadth. Moreover, he was clad in a striped cloak and a burnouse, with a steel cutlass by his side, and valour shone from his eyes, testifying for him and not against him. So she returned to the VOL. VI.