Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/169

157 after the custom of kings with their daughters [on the morrow of their wedding-night,] taking with him silken stuffs [as a present] and scattering gold and silver among the eunuchs and tire-women, that they might scramble for it: but when he came to the new palace, he and one of his pages, he found the vizier prostrate on the carpet, knowing not his head from his feet, and searched the palace right and left for his daughter, but found her not; whereat he was sore troubled and concerned and his wit forsook him.

Then he called for hot water and frankincense and virgin vinegar and mingling them together, blew the mixture into the vizier’s nostrils and shook him, whereupon he cast the henbane forth of his stomach, as it were a piece of cheese. He repeated the injection, whereupon the vizier came to himself and the king questioned him of his case and that of his daughter. ‘O mighty king,’ answered the vizier, ‘I have no knowledge of her save that she poured me out a cup of wine with her own hand; and from that moment to this I have no recollection of aught nor know I what is come of her.’ When the king heard this, the light in his eyes became darkness, and he drew his sword and smote the vizier on the head, that the steel came out gleaming from between his teeth. Then he called the grooms and stable-men and demanded the two horses of them; but they said, ‘O king, when we awoke in the morning, we found all the doors open and the two chargers missing; and our chief, the master of the horse, is also missing.’ Quoth the king, ‘By my faith and all wherein my belief is stablished, none but my daughter hath taken the horses, she and the Muslim captive that used to tend the church and who took her aforetime! Indeed I knew him right well and none delivered him from my hand save this one-eyed vizier; but now is he requited his deed.’