Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/315

287 serpents and cast them down before him; whereat the fish-seller, who was afraid of snakes, fled from them into the [inner] shop. Then Ali picked up the snakes and thrusting them back into the bag, put out his hard and caught hold of the end of the purse. The bells rang and the rings and rattles jangled, and Zureic said, ‘Wilt thou never cease to play me tricks? Now thou feignest thyself a serpent-charmer.’ So saying, he took up a piece of lead and hurled it at Ali; [but he avoided it,] and it fell on the head of a groom, who was passing by, in attendance upon his master, a trooper, and knocked him down. Quoth the soldier, ‘Who did that?’ And the folk said, ‘It was a stone fell from the roof.’ So the soldier passed on and the people, seeing the piece of lead, went up to Zureic and said to him, ‘ [sic]Take down the purse;’ and he said, ‘God willing, I will take it down this very night.’

Ali ceased not to play tricks upon Zureic, till he had made seven different attempts for the purse, but without success. Then he returned the snake-charmer his clothes and gear and gave him a present; after which he went back to Zureic’s shop and heard him say, ‘If I leave the purse here to-night, he will break in and take it; I will carrrycarry [sic] it home with me.’ So he shut his shop and putting the purse in his sleeve, set out home, and Ali followed him till he came near his house, when he saw a wedding toward in a neighbour’s house and said in himself, ‘I will go home and give my wife the purse and change my clothes and return to the wedding.’ Now he was married to a black girl, one of the freed women of the Vizier Jaafer, and she had borne him a son, whom he named Abdallah, and he had promised her to spend the money in the purse on the occasion of the boy’s circumcision and marriage. So he went into his house and Ali, following him by stealth, stepped into a closet, whence he could hear and see all that passed. When Zureic entered, his wife saw that