Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 2.djvu/74

 54 Alf Laylah wa Laylah. come out to look on, and my master's family following them, all screaming and crying aloud and weeping exceeding sore weeping The first to address my owner were his wife and children ; and when he saw them he was confounded and laughed * and said to them, " How is it with all of you and what befel you in the house and vhat hath come to pass to you ? " When they saw him they exclaimed, " Praise be to Allah for thy preservation ! " and threw themselves upon him and his children hung about him crying, "Alack, our fathertJThanks to Allah for thy safety, O our father!" And his wife said to him, "Art thou indeed well ? Laud to Allah who hath shown us thy face in safety ! " And indeed she was con- founded and her reason fled when she saw him, and she asked, " O, my lord, how didst thou escape, thou and thy friends the mer- chants?"; and he answered her, "And how fared it with thee in the house ? " Quoth they, "We were all well, whole and healthy, nor hath aught of evil befallen us in the house, save that thy slave Kafur came to us, bareheaded with torn garments and howling : Alas, the master ! Alas the master 1 So we asked him : What tidings, O Kafur? and he answered : A wall of the garden hath fallen on my master and his friends the merchants, and they are all crushed and dead!" " By Allah," said my master, "he came to me but now howling : Alas, my mistress ! Alas, the children of the mistress !, and said : My mistress and her children are all dead, every one of them ! " Then he looked round and seeing me with my turband rent in rags round my neck, howling and weeping with exceeding weeping and throwing dust upon my head, he cried out at rne. So I came to him and he said, " Woe to thee, O ill- omened slave ! O whoreson knave! O thou damned breed ! What mischief thou hast wrought ? By Allah ! I will flog thy skin from thy flesh and cut thy flesh from thy bones ! " I rejoined, " By Allah, thou canst do nothing of the kind with me, O my lord, for thou boughtest me with my blemish ; and there are honest men to bear witness against thee that thou didst so accepting the con- dition, and that thou knewest of my fault which is to tell one lie every year. Now this is only a half-lie, but by the end of the year I will tell the other half, then will the lie stand whole and complete." " O dog, son of a dog ! ", cried my master, " O most accursed of slaves, is this all of it but a half-lie ? Verily if it be a half-lie 'tis a whole calamity ! Get thee from me, thou art free in The usual hysterical laughter of this nervous race.