Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 3.djvu/18

 face with skin bristling and looked at me with furious eyes. When I saw her in this case I was terrified at her and my side muscles trembled and quivered, for she was like a dreadful she Ghul, an ogress in ire, and I like a bean over the fire. Then said she, "Thou art of no use to me, now thou art married and hast a child; nor art thou any longer fit for my company; I care only for bachelors and not for married men: these profit us nothing Thou hast sold me for yonder stinking armful; but, by Allah, I will make the whore's heart ache for thee, and thou shalt not live either for me or for her!" Then she cried a loud cry and, ere I could think, up came the slave girls and threw me on the ground; and when I was helpless under their hands she rose and, taking a knife, said, "I will cut thy throat as they slaughter he goats; and that will be less than thy desert, for thy doings to me and the daughter of thy uncle before me." When I looked to my life and found myself at the mercy of her slave women, with my cheeks dust soiled, and saw her sharpen the knife, I made sure of death.And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Wazir Dandan thus continued his tale to Zau al-Makan:Then quoth the youth Aziz to Taj al-Muluk, Now when I found my life at the mercy of her slave women with my cheeks dust soiled, and I saw her sharpen the knife, I made sure of death and cried out to her for mercy. But she only redoubled in ferocity and ordered the slave girls to pinion my hands behind me, which they did; and, throwing me on my back, she seated herself on my middle and held down my head. Then two of them came up and squatted on my shin bones, whilst other two grasped my hands and arms; and she summoned a third pair and bade them beat me. So they beat me till I fainted and my voice failed. When I revived, I said to myself, " 'Twere easier and better for me to have my gullet slit than to be beaten on this wise!" And I remembered the words of my cousin, and how she used to say to me, "Allah, keep thee from