Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 7.djvu/353

325 have silver, if not gold. Stay here, till I bring thee the money.’ So he entered his lodging and taking a maul he had there, set with forty nails,—wherewith if he smote a camel, he made an end of him,—made for the porter and raised his hand to strike him therewith; but Zureic cried out at him, saying, ‘Hold thy hand! I have no claim on thee,’ [and made off].

Then Khelif carried the chest into the khan, whereupon the neighbours flocked about him, saying, ‘O Khelif, whence hadst thou this gown and chest?’ Quoth he, ‘My apprentice Er Reshid gave them to me,’ and they said, ‘The knave is mad! Er Reshid will surely hear of his talk and hang him over the door of his lodging and hang all in the khan on his account. This is a [fine] farce!’ Then they helped him to carry the chest into his lodging and it filled the whole chamber.

So much for Khelif and now for the history of the chest. The Khalif had a Turkish slave-girl, by name Cout el Culoub, whom he loved with an exceeding love, and the Lady Zubeideh came to know of this and was exceeding jealous of her and plotted mischief against her. So, whilst the Commander of the Faithful was absent a-hunting, she sent for Cout el Culoub and inviting her [to eat with her], set before her meat and wine, and she ate and drank. Now the wine was drugged with henbane; so she slept and Zubeideh sent for her chief eunuch and putting her in a chest, locked it and gave it to him, saying, ‘Take this chest and cast it into the river.’

So he took it up before him on a mule and set out with it for the sea, but found it uneath to carry; so, seeing the sheikh of the brokers, as he passed by the trunk-market, he said to him, ‘Wilt thou sell me this chest, O uncle?’ ‘Yes,’ answered the broker, [and the