Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 7.djvu/188

166 following verses, for that her heart was comforted and God had reunited her with her son:

Then they sat talking and his mother said to him, ‘O my son, how faredst thou with the Persian?’ ‘O my mother,’ answered Hassan, ‘he was no Persian, but a Magian, who worshipped the fire, not the All-powerful King.’ Then he told her how he had dealt with him, in that he had journeyed with him [to the Mountain of Clouds] and sewed him in the camel’s skin, and how the rocs had taken him up and set him down on the mountain-top and what he had seen there of dead folk, whom the Magian had deluded and left [to perish] on the mountain, after they had done his occasion. And he told her how he had cast himself from the mountain-top into the sea and God the Most High had preserved him and brought him to the palace of the [seven] damsels and how the youngest of them had taken him to brother and he had sojourned with them, till God brought the Magian to the place where he was and he slew him. Moreover, he told her of his passion for the damsel and how he had made prize of her and of his seeing her [his mother] in sleep and all else that had befallen him up to the time when God reunited them.

She marvelled at his story and praised God who had restored him to her in health and safety. Then she arose and examined the baggage and loads and questioned him of them. So he told her what was in them, whereat she