Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 2.djvu/90

 68 Alf Laylah wa Laylah. what else was light to bear and of value rare. When she saw Ja'afar come in, she rose and, kissing the ground before him, said, " O my lord, the Reed hath written of old the rede which Allah decreed!" 1 ' " By Allah, O my lady," answered Ja'afar, " he gave me an order to seize Ghanim son of Ayyub ; " and she rejoined, " O my lord, he made ready his goods and set out therewith for Damascus and I know nothing more of him ; but I desire thee take charge of this chest and deliver it to me in the Harim of the Prince of the Faith- ful." " Hearing and obedience," said Ja'afar, and bade his men bear it away to the head-quarters of the Caliphate together with Kut al-Kulub, commanding them to entreat her with honour as one in high esteem. They did his bidding after they had wrecked and plundered Ghanim's house. Then Ja'afar went in to the Caliph and told him all that had happened, and he ordered Kut al-Kulub to be lodged in a dark chamber and appointed an old woman to serve her, feeling convinced that Ghanim had debauched her and slept with her. Then he wrote a mandate to the Emir Mohammed bin Sulay- man al-Zayni, his viceroy in Damascus, to this effect : " The instant thou shalt receive this our letter, seize upon Ghanim bin Ayyub and send him to us." When the missive came to the viceroy, he kissed it and laid it on his head ; then he let proclaim in the bazars, " Whoso is desirous to plunder, away with him to the house of Ghanim son of Ayyub." 2 So they flocked thither, when they found that Ghanim's mother and sister had built him a tomb s in the midst of the house and sat by it weeping for him ; whereupon they seized the two without telling them the cause and, after spoiling the house, carried them before the viceroy. He questioned them concerning Ghanim and both replied, " For a year or more we have had no news of him." So they restored them to their place. Thus far concerning them; but as regards Ghanim, when he saw his wealth spoiled and his ruin utterest he wept over himself till his heart well-nigh brake. Then he fared on at random till the last The Pen (title of the Koranic chapt. Ixviii.) and the Preserved Tablet (before ex- plained). These plunderings were sanctioned by custom. But a few years ago, when the Turkish soldiers mutinied about arrears of pay (often delayed for years) the governing Pasha would set fire to the town and allow the men to loot what they pleased during a stated time. Rochet (soi-dtsant D'Hericourt) amusingly describes this manoeuvre of the Turkish Governor of Al-Hodaydah in the last generation (Pilgrimage iii. 381). Another cenotaph whose use was to enable women to indulge in their pet pastime of weeping and wailing in company.