Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/387

357 but, if any mischief have befallen him among you, his father will lay waste your land and slay your men and make spoil of your goods and your women. Return, therefore, in haste, to thy lord and tell him this, ere evil befall him.’ ‘I hear and obey,’ answered the Vizier and turned to go away, when the chamberlain cried out to him, saying, ‘Kiss the earth! Kiss the earth!’ So he kissed the earth a score of times and rose not till his heart was in his mouth.

Then he returned to the city, full of anxious thought concerning the affair of this King and the multitude of his troops, and going in to King Abdulcadir, pale with fear and trembling in every limb, acquainted him with that which he had seen and heard; whereat disquietude and fear for his people laid hold upon him and he said to the Vizier, ‘O Vizier, and who is this King’s son?’ ‘It is even he whom thou badest put to death,’ answered the Vizier; ‘but praised be God who hastened not his slaughter! Else had his father laid waste our lands and spoiled our goods.’ ‘See now,’ quoth the King, ‘thy corrupt judgment, in that thou didst counsel us to kill him! Where is the young man, the son of yonder magnanimous king?’ ‘O mighty King,’ answered the Vizier, ‘thou didst command him to be put to death.’ When the King heard this, he was distracted and cried out in a terrible voice, saying, ‘Out on you! Fetch me the headsman forthright, lest death fall on him!’ So they fetched the headsman and he said, ‘O King of the age, I have smitten off his head even as thou badest me.’ ‘O dog,’ cried Abdulcadir, ‘if this be true, I will assuredly send thee after him.’ Quoth the headsman, ‘O King, thou didst command me to slay him without again consulting thee.’ ‘I was in my anger,’ replied the King; ‘but speak the truth, ere thou lose thy life.’ And he said, ‘O King, he is yet in the chains of life.’