Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 5.djvu/331

 Hasib, saying, "Have no fear of us, O youth; for I am the Queen of the Serpents and their Sultánah." When he heard her speak on this wise, he took heart and she bade the serpents bring him somewhat of food. [FN#512] So they brought apples and grapes and pomegranates and pistachio-nuts and filberts and walnuts and almonds and bananas and set them before him, and the Queen-serpent said, "Welcome, O youth! What is thy name?" Answered he, "Hasib Karim al-Din;" and she rejoined, "O Hasib, eat of these fruits, for we have no other meat and fear thou have nothing from us at all." Hearing this, he ate his fill and praised Allah Almighty; and presently they took away the trays from before him, and the Queen said, "Tell me, O Hasib, whence thou art and how camest thou hither and what hath befallen thee." So he told her his story from first to last, the death of his father; his birth; his being sent to school where he learnt nothing; his becoming a wood cutter; his finding the honey-cistern; his being abandoned therein; his killing the scorpion; his widening the crevice; his finding the iron door and his coming upon the Queen, and he ended his long tale with saying, "These be my adventures from beginning to end and only Allah wotteth what will betide me after all this!" Quoth the Queen, after listening to his words, "Nothing save good shall betide thee:"--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Four Hundred and Eighty-sixth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Serpent-queen had heard his story she said, "Nothing save good shall betide thee: but I would have thee, O Hasib, abide with me some time, that I may tell thee my history and acquaint thee with the wondrous adventures which have happened to me." "I hear and obey thy hest," answered he; and she began to tell in these words,

The Adventures of Bulukiya.