Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 2.djvu/37

Rh reached four thousand dinars; whereupon quoth I to myself: I will buy this damsel for our lord the Sultan, whose money was paid for her. So I said to Nur al-Din : O my son, sell her to me for four thousand dinars. When he heard my words he looked at me and cried : O ill-omened oldster, I will sell her to a Jew or to a Nazarene, but I will not sell her to thee ! I do not buy her for myself, said I, I buy her for our lord and benefactor the Sultan. Hearing my words he was filled with rage ; and, dragging me off my horse (and I a very old man), beat me unmercifully with his fists and buffeted me with his palms till he left me as thou seest, and all this hath befallen me only because I thought to buy this damsel for thee!" Then the Wazir threw himself on the ground and lay there weeping and shivering. When the Sultan saw his condition and heard his story, the vein of rage started out between his eyes and he turned to his body-guard who stood before him, forty white slaves, smiters with the sword, and said to them, " Go down forthright to the house built by the son of Khakan and sack it and raze it and bring to me his son Nur al-Din with the damsel ; and drag them both on their faces with their arms pinioned behind them." They replied, " To hear is to obey ; " and, arming them- selves, they set out for the house of Nur al-Din Ali. Now about the Sultan was a Chamberlain, Alam al-Din Sanjar hight, who had aforetime been Mameluke to Al-Fazl ; but he had risen in the world and the Sultan had advanced him to be one of his Chamberlains. When he heard the King's command and saw the enemies make them ready to slay his old master's son, it was grievous to him : so he went out from before the Sultan and, mounting his beast, rode to Nur al-Din's house and knocked at the door Nur al-Din came out and knowing him would have saluted him : but he said, " O my master this is no time for greeting or treating. Listen to what the poet said :