Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/334

304 them to the Khalif, who bestowed on them dresses of honour and largesse. Then the tiring-women displayed Zeyneb before Ali in the robe of the Jew’s daughter, and he went in to her and found her an unpierced pearl and a filly that none but he had ridden. Then he went in to the three other girls and found them accomplished in beauty and grace.

After this, it befell that Ali was one night on guard by the Khalif and the latter said to him, ‘O Ali, I wish thee to tell me all that has befallen thee from first to last.’ So Ali related to him all his adventures and the Khalif bade record them and lay them up in the royal treasuries. So they wrote down all that had befallen him and laid it up with other histories for the people of the Best of Men. And Ali and his wives and comrades abode in all delight and solace of life, till there came to them the Destroyer of Delights and Sunderer of Companies; and blessed and exalted be Allah, for He [alone] is All-knowing! ARDESHIR AND HEYAT EN NUFOUS.

There was once in the city of Shiraz a mighty king called Seif el Aazem Shah, who had grown old, without being blessed with a son. So he summoned the doctors and sages and said to them, ‘I am grown old and ye know my case and the state and ordinance of the kingdom, and I fear for my subjects after me, for that up to now God hath not vouchsafed me a son.’ ‘We will compound thee drugs,’ answered they, ‘wherein, if it please God the Most High, there shall be efficacy.’ So they mixed him drugs, which he used and lay with his wife, and she conceived by leave of God the Most High, who saith to a thing, ‘Be,’ and it is. When her months were accomplished, she gave