Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 2.djvu/60

 40 A If Laylah wa Laylak. Wazir sent every day enjoining the jailor to beat nim, but he abstained from this, and so continued to do for forty days. On the forty-first day there came a present from the Caliph ; which when the Sultan saw, it pleased him and he consulted his Ministers on the matter, when one of them said, " Perchance this present was for the new Sultan." Cried Al-Mu'in, " We should have done well had we put him to death at his first coming ; " and the Sultan cried " By Allah, thou hast reminded me of him ! Go down to the prison and fetch him, and I will strike off his head." "To hear is to obey," replied Al-Mu'in : then he stood up and said, " I will make proclamation in the city: Whoso would solace himself with seeing the beheading of Nur al-Din bin al-Fazl bin Khakan, let him repair to the palace ! So follower and followed, great and small will flock to the spectacle, and I shall heal my heart and harm my foe." " Do as thou wilt," said the Sultan. The Wazir went off (and he was glad and gay), and ordered the Chief of Police to make the afore-mentioned proclamation. When the people heard the crier, they all sorrowed and wept, even the little ones at school and the traders in their shops ; and some strove to get places for seeing the sight, whilst others went to the prison with the object of escorting him thence. Presently, the Wazir came with ten Mamelukes to the jail and Kutayt the jailor asked him, " Whom seekest thou, O our lord the Wazir ? " ; whereto he answered, " Bring me out that gallows-bird." But the jailor said, " He is in the sorriest of plights for the much beating I have given him." Then he went into the prison and found Nur al-Din repeating these verses : Who shall support me in calamities, o When fail all cures and greater cares arise ? Exile hath worn my heart, my vitals torn ; o The World to foes hath turned my firm allies. O folk, will not one friend amidst you all o Wail o'er my woes, and cry to hear my cries ? Death and its agonies seem light to me, o Since life has lost all joys and jollities : Lord of Mustafa^ 1 that Science-sea Sole Intercessor, Guide all-ware, all-wise ! pray thee free me and my fault forego, o And from me drive mine evil and my woe. The older " Mustapha" = Mohammed. This Intercession-doctrine is fiercely disputed. Pilgrimage ii. 77. The Apostle of Al-Islam seems to have been unable to make up his mind upon the subject : and modern opinion amongst Moslems is apparently borrowed from the Christians.