Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/331

301 else, when a sweetmeat-seller met me and drugged me and took them from me; but, if I come across him again, I will requite him.’

Presently Hassan Shouman came out of a closet and said to him, ‘O Ali, hast thou gotten the gear?’ So he told him what had befallen him and added, ‘If I knew where to find the knave, I would pay him out.’ ‘Knowest thou whither he went?’ ‘Yes,’ answered Hassan; ‘I know where he is,’ and opening the door of the closet, showed him the sweetmeat-seller within, drugged and senseless. Then he aroused him and he opened his eyes and finding himself in presence of Quicksilver Ali and Ahmed ed Denef and the Forty, started up and said, ‘Where am I and who has laid hands on me?’ ‘It was I laid hands on thee,’ answered Hassan; and Ali said, ‘O perfidious wretch, wilt thou play thy tricks on me?’ And he would have slain him: but Hassan said to him, ‘Hold thy hand, for this fellow is become thy kinsman.’ ‘How so?’ asked Ali; and Hassan said, ‘This is Ahmed el Lekit, Zeyneb’s sister’s son.’

Then said Ali to the prisoner, ‘Why didst thou thus, O Lekit?’ and he answered, saying, ‘My grandmother, Delileh the Crafty, bade me do it; because Zureic the fishmonger foregathered with her and said, “Quicksilver Ali is a sharper and a past master in craft and knavery, and he will certainly kill the Jew and bring back the robe.” So she sent for me and said to me, “O Ahmed, dost thou know Ali of Cairo?” “Yes,” answered I; “it was I who directed him to Ahmed ed Denef’s lodging, when he first came to Baghdad.” Quoth she, “Go and set thy snares for him, and if he have brought back the gear, put a cheat on him and take it from him.” So I went round about the city, till I met a sweetmeat-seller and buying his clothes and stock-in-trade and gear for ten dinars, did with thee as thou knowest.’ Quoth Ali, ‘Go back to thy