Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/172

150 “Welcome and fair welcome to thee, O my beloved and solace of my eyes!” “O my lady,” rejoined I, “whence knowest thou my name and who art thou and what aileth the people of this city, that they are become stones? I would have thee tell me the truth of the case, for indeed I am wondered at this city and its folk and that I have found none [alive] therein but thee. So, God on thee, tell me the cause of all this, according to the truth!” Quoth she, “Sit, O Abdallah, and God willing, I will talk with thee and acquaint thee in full with the truth of my case and that of this city and its people; and there is no power and no virtue save in God the Most High, the Supreme!”

So I sat down by her side and she said to me, “Know, O Abdallah, (may God have mercy on thee!) that I am the daughter of the king of this city and that it is my father whom thou sawest seated on the high throne in the divan, and those who are about him were the grandees of his realm and the officers of his household. He was a king of exceeding prowess and had under his hand a thousand thousand and six-score thousand troopers. The number of the amirs of his realm was four-and-twenty thousand, all of them governors and dignitaries. He ruled over a thousand cities, besides towns and hamlets and fortresses and citadels and villages, and the amirs of the [wild] Arabs under his hand were a thousand in number, each ruling over twenty thousand horse. Moreover, he had riches and treasures and precious stones and jewels and things of price, such as eye never saw nor ear heard of. He used to conquer kings and do to death champions and warriors in battle and in the listed field, so that the mighty feared him and the Chosroës humbled themselves to him. For all this, he was a misbeliever,