Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 7.djvu/328

300 she; and he said, ‘By Allah, I never saw a stingier than he, that piper little of good and wit! He gave me a hundred blows with a stick yesterday and one poor dinar, for all I taught him to fish and made him my partner; but he played me false.’ ‘Leave this unseemly talk,’ replied she, ‘and open thine eyes and look thou bear thyself respectfully, whenas thou seest him after this, and thou shalt attain thy desire.’

When he heard her words, it was as if he had been asleep and awoke; and God removed the veil from his judgment, because of his good luck, and he answered, ‘On my head and eyes!’ Then said he to her, ‘Sleep, in the name of God.’ So she lay down and fell asleep, and he slept at a distance from her, till the morning, when she sought of him inkhorn and paper and wrote to Ibn el Kirnas, acquainting him with her case and how she was with Khelifeh the fisherman, who had bought her. Then she gave him the letter, saying, ‘Go to the jewel-market and enquire for the shop of Ibn el Kirnas the jeweller and give him this letter and speak not.’ ‘I hear and obey,’ answered Khelifeh and going to the market, enquired for the shop of Ibn el Kirnas. They directed him thither and he saluted the merchant, who returned his greeting with an air of disdain and said to him, ‘What dost thou want?’

So he gave him the letter and he took it, but read it not, thinking the fisherman a beggar, who sought an alms of him, and said to one of his servants, ‘Give him half a dirhem.’ Quoth Khelifeh, ‘I want no alms; read the letter.’ So Ibn el Kirnas read the letter and no sooner knew its import than he rose and kissing it, laid it on his head and said to Khelifeh, ‘O my brother, where is thy house?’ ‘What wantest thou with my house?’ asked Khelifeh. ‘Wilt thou go thither and steal my slave-girl?’ ‘Not so,’ answered Ibn el Kirnas; ‘on the contrary, I