Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/66

48 servant went in and told his master, who rejoiced and rising, came out to them in person. He was a comely and well-favoured man, clad in a tunic of Nishapour [silk] and a gold-laced mantle; and he dripped with scented waters and wore a ring of rubies on his hand. When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Welcome and fair welcome to the lords who do us the utmost of favour by their coming!’ So they entered the house and found it such as would make a man forget home and family, for it was as it were a piece of Paradise. Within it was a garden, full of all kinds of trees, confounding the beholder, and its dwelling-places were furnished with costly furniture. They sat down and the Khalif sat looking at the house and the furniture.

(Quoth Ibn Hemdoun), I looked at the Khalif and saw his countenance change, and being wont to know from his face whether he was pleased or angry, said to myself, ‘I wonder what has vexed him.’ Then they brought a golden basin and we washed our hands, after which they spread a silken cloth and set thereon a table of bamboo. When the covers were taken off the dishes, we saw therein meats [costly] as the flowers of Spring in the season of their utmost scarcity, in pairs and singly, and the host said, ‘[Eat,] O my lords, in the name of God! By Allah, hunger pricks me; so favour me by eating of this food, as is the fashion of the noble.’

Then he fell to tearing fowls apart and laying them before us, laughing the while and repeating verses and telling stories and talking gaily with quaint and pleasant sayings such as sorted with the entertainment. We ate and drank, then removed to another room, which confounded the beholder with its beauty and which reeked with exquisite perfumes. Here they brought us a tray of freshly-gathered fruits and delicious sweetmeats, whereat our joys redoubled and our cares ceased. But withal the