Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/51

31 As for his brothers, they went in next morning to his mother and said to her, ‘O mother, our brother Jouder is not awake.’ Quoth she, ‘Do ye wake him.’ ‘Where lieth he?’ asked they, and she replied, ‘With the guests.’ ‘Peradventure,’ rejoined they, ‘he went away with them whilst we slept. It would seem that he had tasted of foreign travel and yearned to find hidden treasures; for we heard him talk with the Moors, and they said to him, “We will take thee with us and open the treasure to thee.”’ ‘Hath he then been in company with Moors?’ asked she, and they answered, saying, ‘Were they not our guests yesternight?’ ‘Most like he hath gone with them,’ said she; ‘but God will direct him aright; for there is a blessing upon him and he will surely come back with great good.’ And she wept, for it was grievous to her to be parted from her son.

Then said they to her, ‘O accursed woman, dost thou love Jouder with all this love, whilst as for us, whether we be absent or present, thou neither joyest in us nor sorrowest for us? Are we not thy sons, even as Jouder is thy son?’ ‘Ye are indeed my sons,’ answered she; ‘but ye are reprobates who deserve no favour of me, for I have never had any satisfaction of you since your father’s death; whilst, as for Jouder, I have had abundant good of him and he has comforted my heart and entreated me with honour; wherefore it behoves me to weep for him, because of his goodness to me and to you.’

When they heard this, they reviled her and beat her; after which they sought for the saddle-bags, till they found the two pairs and took the enchanted one and all the gold and jewels from the other, saying, ‘This was our father’s good.’ ‘Not so, by Allah!’ said their mother. ‘It belongs to your brother Jouder, who brought it from the land of the Moors.’ ‘Thou liest,’ answered they; ‘it was our father’s property; and we will dispose of it.’