Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/319

291 Ali said to him, ‘Do thou accept it on account of thy niece Zeyneb.’ And Zureic replied, ‘I accept it.’

Then said the forty, ‘We demand of thee Zeyneb in marriage for Ali of Cairo.’ But he answered, saying, ‘I have no control over her but of courtesy.’ Quoth Hassan, ‘Dost thou grant our suit?’ ‘Yes,’ replied he; ‘I will grant her in marriage to him who can avail to her dowry.’ ‘And what is her dowry?’ asked Hassan. Quoth Zureic, ‘She hath sworn that none shall mount her breast except he bring her the robe of Kemer, daughter of Azariah the Jew, and her crown and girdle and pantable of gold.’ ‘If I do not bring her the robe this very night,’ said Ali, ‘I renounce my claim to her.’ ‘O Ali,’ rejoined Zureic, ‘if thou play any tricks on Kemer, thou art a dead man.’ ‘Why so?’ asked Ali, and the other said, ‘Her father Azariah is a skilful magician, wily and perfidious, and has the Jinn at his service. He has without the city a palace, the walls whereof are one brick of gold and one of silver and which is only visible to the folk whilst he is therein: but, when he goes forth, it disappears. He brought his daughter this robe I speak of from an enchanted treasure, and every day he lays it in a dish of gold and opening the windows of the palace, cries out, saying, “Where are the sharpers of Cairo, the cutters of Irak, the master-thieves of the land of the Persians? Whoso availeth to take this robe, it is his.” So all the light-fingered gentry essayed the adventure, but availed not to take it, and he turned them into apes and asses.’ But Ali said, ‘I will assuredly take it and Zeyneb shall be displayed therein.’

So he went to the shop of the Jew and found him a man of stern and forbidding aspect, seated with scales and weights and gold and silver and nests of drawers and so forth before him, and a mule tethered hard by. Presently he rose and shutting his shop, laid the gold and silver in