Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 2.djvu/59

 Nur at- Din AH and the Damsel Ants al-Jalis. 39 it said, " I hear and I obey Allah Almighty and the Commander of the Faithful ! " Then he summoned the four Kazis 1 and the Emirs and was about to divest himself of the rule royal, when behold, in came Al Mu'in bin Sawi. The Sultan gave him the Caliph's letter and he read it, then tore it to pieces and putting it into his mouth, chewed it 2 and spat it out. "Woe to thee," quoth the Sultan (and indeed he was sore angered) ; " what induced thee to do this deed ? " " Now by thy life ! O our lord the Sultan," replied Mu'in, " this man hath never foregathered with the Caliph nor with his Wazir ; but he is a gallows-bird, a limb of Satan, a knave who, having come upon a written paper in the Caliph's hand, some idle scroll, hath made it serve his own end. The Caliph would surely not send him to take the Sultanate from thee without the imperial autograph 3 and the diploma of investiture, and he certainly would have despatched with him a Chamberlain or a Minister. But he hath come alone and he never came from the Caliph, no, never ! never ! never ! " " What is to be done ? " asked the Sultan, and the Minister answered, " Leave him to me and I will take him and keep him away from thee, and send him in charge of a Chamberlain to Baghdad-city. Then, if what he says be sooth, they will bring us back autograph and investiture ; and if not, I will take my due out of this debtor." When the Sultan heard the Minister's words he said, " Hence with thee and him too." Al Mu'in took trust of him from the King and, carrying him to his own house, cried out to his pages who laid him flat and beat him till he fainted. Then he let put upon his feet heavy shackles and carried him to the jail, where he called the jailor, one Kutayt, 4 who came and kissed the ground before him. Quoth the Wazir, " O Kutayt, I wish thee to take this fellow and throw him into one of the underground cells 5 in the prison and torture him night and day." " To hear is to obey," replied the jailor and, taking Nur al-Din into the prison, locked the door upon him. Then he gave orders to sweep a bench behind the door and, spreading on it a sitting-rug and a leather-cloth, seated Nur al-Din thereon and loosed his shackles and entreated him kindly. The The Judges of the four orthodox schools. That none might see it or find it ever after. Arab. " Khatt Sharif" = a royal autographical letter: the term is still preserved in Turkey, but Europeans will write " Hatt." Meaning " Little tom-cat " ; a dim. of " Kitt " vulg. Kutt or Gutt. s Arab. "Matmurah " the Algerine "Matamor" a "silo," made familiar to England by the invention of " Ensilage."