Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/155

135 veiled my face with the Khalif!’ Then Abdallah took a present beseeming the Khalif and mounting the dogs with him, each on a camel, bound with chains of gold, journeyed with Abou Ishac to Baghdad, where he went in to the Khalif and kissed the earth before him. He bade him sit; so he sat down and brought the two dogs before Er Reshid, who said to him, ‘What are these dogs, O Amir Abdallah?’ Whereupon they fell to kissing the ground before him and wagging their tails and weeping, as if complaining to him.

The Khalif marvelled at this and said to the governor, ‘Tell me the history of these two dogs and the reason of thy beating them and after entreating them with honour.’ ‘O Vicar of God,’ replied Abdallah, ‘these are no dogs, but two handsome young men, endowed with grace and shapeliness and symmetry, and they are my brothers and the sons of my father and my mother.’ ‘How is it,’ asked the Khalif, ‘that they were men and are become dogs?’ Quoth Abdallah, ‘If thou give me leave, O Commander of the Faithful, I will acquaint thee with the truth of the case.’ ‘Tell me,’ said the Khalif, ‘and beware of leasing, for it is of the fashion of the hypocrites, and look thou tell truth, for that it is the ark of safety and the characteristic of the virtuous.’ ‘O Vicar of God,’ rejoined Abdallah, ‘when I tell thee the story of these dogs, they will both bear witness against me.’ Quoth the Khalif, ‘These are dogs; they cannot speak nor answer; so how can they testify for thee or against thee?’ So Abdallah said to them, ‘O my brothers, if I speak an untrue word, do ye lift your heads and stare with your eyes; but, if I speak truth, hang down your heads and lower your eyes.’

Then said he to the Khalif, ‘Know, O Commander of the Faithful, that we are three brothers by one father and mother. Our father’s name was Fazil and he was thus