Page:The Perfumed Garden - Burton - 1886.djvu/71

Rh

The King said, "Do you speak seriously?" She was silent. Then the King cried, "O Beder el Bedour, you alone shall be pardoned!" She understood that it was she only that the King would spare from the punishment of death. He then cautioned her that she must keep the secret, and said he wanted to leave now.

Then all the women and virgins approached Beder el Bedour and implored her, saying, "Intercede for us, for you have power over the King"; and they shed tears over her hands, and in despair threw themselves down.

Beder el Bedour then called the King back, who was going, and said to him, "O our master! you have not granted me any favour yet." "How," said he, "I have sent for a beautiful mule for you; you will mount her and come with us. As for these women, they must all of them die."

She then said, "O our master! I ask you and conjure you to authorize me to make a stipulation which you will accept." The King made oath that he would fulfil it. Then she said, "I ask as a gift the pardon of all these women and of all these maidens. Their deaths would moreover throw the most terrible consternation over the whole town."

The King said, "There is no might nor power but in God, the merciful!" He then ordered the negroes to be taken out and beheaded. The only exception he made was with the negro Dorerame, who was enormously stout and had a neck like a bull. They cut off his ears, nose, and lips; likewise his virile member, which they put into his mouth, and then hung him on a gallows.

Then the King ordered the seven doors of the house to be closed, and returned to his palace.