Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 2.djvu/61

 Nur al-Din All and the Damsel Anis al-Jalis. 41 The jailor stripped off his clean clothes and, dressing him in two filthy vests, carried him to the Wazir. Nur al-Din looked at him and saw it was his foe that sought to compass his death ; so he wept and said, " Art thou, then, so secure against the World ? Hast thou not heard the saying of the poet : Kisras and Caesars in a bygone day o Stored wealth ; where is it, and ah ! where are they?" " O Wazir," he continued, " know that Allah (be He extolled and exalted !) will do whatso He will 1 " " O Ali," replied he, " think- est thou to frighten me with such talk ? I mean this very day to smite thy neck despite the noses of the Bassorah folk and I care not ; let the days do as they please ; nor will I turn me to thy counsel but rather to what the poet saith : Leave thou the days to breed their ban and bate, o And make thee strong t' upbear the weight of Fate. And also how excellently saith another : Whoso shall see the death-day of his foe, o One day surviving, wins his bestest wish." Then he ordered ~his attendants to mount Nur al-Din upon the bare back of a mule ; and they said to" the youth (for truly it was irksome to them), "Let us stone him and cut him down though our lives go for it." But Nur al-Din said to them, " Do not so : have ye not heard the saying of the poet ? Needs must I bear the term by Fate decreed, o And when that day be dead needs must I die : If lions dragged me to their forest-lair, o Safe should I live till draw my death-day nigh." Then they proceeded to proclaim before Nur al-Din, " This is the least of the retribution for him who imposeth upon Kings with forgeries." And they ceased not parading him round about Bas- sorah, till they made him stand beneath the palace-windows and set him upon the leather of blood, 1 and the sworder came up to Lane (i. 486) curiously says, "The place of the stagnation of blood : " yet he had translated the word aright in the Introduction (i. 41). I have noticed that the Nat'a is made like the "Sufrah," of well-tanned leather, with rings in the periphery, so that a thong passed through turns it into a bag. The Suftah used for provUions is usually yellow, with a black border and small pouches for knives or spoons (Pilgrimage i. in)