Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 7.djvu/119

101 on towards it till ye come to a cave, where are many guests like yourselves. Enter and sit with them, whilst we make ready for you the guest-meal.” We doubted not but he spoke the truth, so fared on, as he bade us, till we came to the cavern, where we found many guests, men like ourselves, but they were all blind; and when we entered, one said, “I am sick;” and another, “I am weak.”

So we said to them, “What is this you say and what is the cause of your sickness and weakness?” “Who are ye?” asked they; and we answered, “We are guests.” Then said they, “What hath made you fall into the hands of yonder accursed wretch? But there is no power and no virtue but in God the Most High, the Supreme! This is a ghoul who eats men and he hath blinded us and meaneth to eat us.” “And how did he blind you?” asked we. “Like as he will blind yourselves even now,” replied they. Quoth we, “And how so?” And they answered, “He will bring you cups of milk and will say to you, ‘Ye are weary with travel: take this milk and drink it.’ And when ye have drunken thereof, ye will become blind like unto us.” Quoth I to myself, “There is no escape for us but by stratagem.” So I dug a hole in the earth and sat over it.

Presently in came the accursed ghoul, with cups of milk, of which he gave one to each of us, saying, “Ye come from the desert and are athirst: so take this milk and drink it, whilst I roast you the meat.” I took the cup and carrying it to my mouth, [made a show of drinking, but] emptied it into the hole; then I cried out, “Alas! my sight is gone and I am blind!” and clapping my hand to my eyes, fell a-weeping and lamenting, whilst he laughed and said, “Fear not.” But, as for my two comrades, they drank the milk and became blind. Then the ghoul arose and stopping up the mouth of the cavern,