Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/217

189 used to go in the guise of the children of the Nazarenes and enter the church and steal the books of the Nazarenes and sell them and buy food with the price. It chanced once that the Christians caught us with a book; whereupon they complained of us to our folk and said to Ali’s father, “An thou hinder not thy son from troubling us, we will complain of thee to the king.” So he appeased them and gave Ali a drubbing; wherefore he ran away none knew whither and he hath now been absent twenty years and none hath brought news of him.’ Quoth the host, ‘I am that very Ali, son of Gaffer Ahmed the druggist, and thou art my playmate Marouf.’ So they saluted each other and Ali said, ‘Tell me why thou camest from Cairo to this city.’

So Marouf told him all that had befallen him with his wife Fatimeh the Shrew and said, ‘So, when her mischief waxed on me, I fled from her towards the Gate of Victory [and went forth the city]. Presently, the rain descended on me; so I entered a ruined cell in the Aadiliyeh and sat there, weeping; whereupon there came forth to me the haunter of the place, to wit, an Afrit of the Jinn, and questioned me. I acquainted him with my case and he took me on his back and flew with me all night between heaven and earth, till he set me down on yonder mountain and gave me to know of the [neighbourhood of this] city. So I came down from the mountain and entered the city, whereupon the people crowded about me and questioned me. I told them that I had left Cairo yesterday, but they believed me not, and presently thou camest up and driving the folk away from me, carriedst me to this house. This, then, is how I came to leave Cairo; and thou, how camest thou hither?’

Quoth Ali, ‘Restlessness got hold upon me, when I was seven years old, from which time I wandered from