The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 9 by Sir Richard Francis Burton (best authors to read .TXT) 📖

orisons; after which they sat conversing and carousing, and Nasir and Mansur fell to telling stories whilst Abdullah hearkened. Now they three were alone in the pavilion, the rest of the company being in another place, and they ceased not to tell quips and tales and rare adventures and anecdotes, till Abdullah’s heart was dissolved within him for watching and sleep overcame him.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

 

When it was the Nine Hundred and Eighty-ninth Night, She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Abdullah was a-wearied with watching and wanted to sleep, they also lay beside him on another couch and waited till he wasdrowned in slumber and when they were certified thereof they arose and knelt upon him: whereupon he awoke and seeing them kneeling on his breast, said to them, “What is this, O my brothers?” Cried they, “We are no brothers of thine, nor do we know thee unmannerly that thou art! Thy death is become better than thy life.” Then they gripped him by the throat and throttled him, till he lost his senses and abode without motion; so that they deemed him dead. Now the pavilion wherein they were overlooked the river; so they cast him into the water; but, when he fell, Allah sent to his aid a dolphin[FN#550] who was accustomed to come under that pavilion because the kitchen had a window that gave upon the stream; and, as often as they slaughtered any beast there, it was their wont to throw the refuse into the river and the dolphin came and picked it up from the surface of the water; wherefore he ever resorted to the place. That day they had cast out much offal by reason of the banquet; so the dolphin ate more than of wont and gained strength. Hearing the splash of Abdullah’s fall, he hastened to the spot, where he saw a son of Adam and Allah guided him so that he took the man on his back and crossing the current made with him for the other bank, where he cast his burthen ashore. Now the place where the dolphin cast up Abdullah was a well-beaten highway, and presently up came a caravan and finding him lying on the river bank, said, “Here is a drowned man, whom the river hath cast up;” and the travellers gathered around to gaze at the corpse. The Shaykh of the caravan was a man of worth, skilled in all sciences and versed in the mystery of medicine and, withal, sound of judgment: so he said to them, “O folk, what is the news?” They answered, “Here is a drowned man;” whereupon he went up to Abdullah and examining him, said to them, “O folk, there is life yet in this young man, who is a person of condition and of the sons of the great, bred in honour and fortune, and Inshallah there is still hope of him.” Then he took him and clothing him in dry clothes warmed him before the fire; after which he nursed him and tended him three days’ march till he revived; but he was passing feeble by reason of the shock, and the chief of the caravan proceeded to medicine him with such simples as he knew, what while they ceased not faring on till they had travelled thirty days’ journey from Bassorah and came to a city in the land of the Persians, by name ‘A�j.[FN#551] Here they alighted at a Khan and spread Abdullah a bed, where he lay groaning all night and troubling the folk with his groans. And when morning morrowed the concierge of the Khan came to the chief of the caravan and said to him, “What is this sick man thou hast with thee? Verily, he disturbeth us.” Quoth the chief, “I found him by the way, on the river-bank and well nigh drowned; and I have tended him, but to no effect, for he recovereth not.” Said the porter, “Show him to the Shaykhah[FN#552] R�jihah.” “Who is this Religious?” asked the chief of the caravan, and the doorkeeper answered, “There is with us a holy woman, a clean maid and a comely, called Rajihah, to whom they present whoso hath any ailment; and he passeth a single night in her house and awaketh on the morrow, whole and ailing nothing.” Quoth the chief, “Direct me to her;” quoth the porter, “Take up thy sick man.” So he and took up Abdullah and the doorkeeper forewent him, till he came to a hermitage, where he saw folk entering with many an ex voto offering and other folk coming forth, rejoicing. The porter went in, till he came to the curtain,[FN#553] and said, “Permission, O Shaykhah Rajihah! Take this sick man.” Said she, “Bring him within the curtain;” and the porter said to Abdullah, “Enter.” So he entered and looking upon the holy woman, saw her to be his wife whom he had brought from the City of Stone. And when he knew her she also knew him and saluted him and he returned her salam. Then said he, “Who brought thee hither?”; and she answered, “When I saw that thy brothers had cast thee away and were contending concerning me, I threw myself into the sea; but my Shaykh Al-Khizr Abu al-‘Abb�s took me up and brought me to this hermitage, where he gave me leave to heal the sick and bade cry in the city, ‘Whoso hath any ailment, let him repair to the Shaykhah Rajihah;’ and he also said to me, ‘Tarry in this hermitage till the time betide, and thy husband shall come to thee here.’ So all the sick used to flock to me and I rubbed them and shampoo’d them and they awoke on the morrow whole and sound; whereby the report of me became noised abroad among the folk, and they brought me votive gifts, so that I have with me abundant wealth. And now I live here in high honour and worship, and all the people of these parts seek my prayers.” Then she rubbed him and by the ordinance of Allah the Most High, he became whole. Now Al-Khizr used to come to her every Friday night, and it chanced that the day of Abdullah’s coming was a Thursday.[FN#554] Accordingly, when the night darkened he and she sat, after a supper of the richest meats, awaiting the coming of Al-Khizr, who made his appearance anon and carrying them forth of the hermitage, set them down in Abdullah’s palace at Bassorah, where he left them and went his way. As soon as it was day, Abdullah examined the palace and knew it for his own; then, hearing the folk clamouring without, he looked forth of the lattice and saw his brothers crucified, each on his own cross.

Now the reason of this was as ensueth. When they had thrown him into the Tigris, the twain arose on the morrow, weeping and saying, “Our brother! the Jinniyah hath carried off our brother!”

Then they made ready a present and sent it to the Caliph, acquainting him with these tidings and suing from him the government of Bassorah. He sent for them and questioned them and they told him the false tale we have recounted, whereupon he was exceeding wroth.[FN#555] So that night he prayed a two-bow prayer before daybreak, as of his wont, and called upon the tribes of the Jinn, who came before him subject-wise, and he questioned them of Abdullah: when they sware to him that none of them had done him aught of hurt and said, “We know not what is become of him.” Then came Sa’idah, daughter of the Red King, and acquainted the Caliph with the truth of Abdullah’s case, and he dismissed the Jinn. On the morrow, he subjected Nasir and Mansur to the bastinado till they confessed, one against other: whereupon the Caliph was enraged with them and cried, “Carry them to Bassorah and crucify them there before Abdullah’s palace.” Such was their case; but as regards Abdullah, when he saw his brothers crucified, he commanded to bury them, then took horse and repairing to Baghdad, acquainted the Caliph with that which his brothers had done with him, from first to last and told him how he had recovered his wife; whereat Al-Rashid marvelled and summoning the Kazi and the witnesses, bade draw up the marriage-contract between Abdullah and the damsel whom he had brought from the City of Stone. So he went in to her and woned with her at Bassorah till there came to them the Destroyer of delights and the Severer of societies; and extolled be the perfection of the Living, who dieth not! Moreover, O auspicious King, I have heard a tale anent

 

End of Volume 9.

 

Arabian Nights, Volume 9

Footnotes

 

[FN#1] Arab. “Wa l� rajma ghaybin:” lit. = without stone-throwing (conjecture) of one latent.

 

[FN#2] i.e. saying Bismillah, etc. See vol. v. 206.

 

[FN#3] Where he was to await her.

 

[FN#4] As a rule, amongst Moslems the rider salutes the man on foot and the latter those who sit. The saying in the text suggests the Christian byword anent Mohammed and the Mountain, which is, I need hardly say, utterly unknown to Mahommedans.

 

[FN#5] The story-teller does not remember that “the city-folk trust to the locking of the gates” (dccclxxxix.); and forgets to tell us that the Princess took the keys from the Wazir whom she had hocussed. In a carefully corrected Arabic Edition of The Nights, a book much wanted, the texts which are now in a mutilated state would be supplied with these details.

 

[FN#6] Which probably would not be the last administered to him by the Amazonian young person, who after her mate feared to approach the dead blackamoor must have known him to be cowardly as Cairenes generally are. Moreover, he had no shame in his poltroonery like the recreant Fellah-soldiers, in the wretched Saw�kin campaign against the noble S�d�ni negroids, who excused their running away by saying, “We are Egyptians” i.e. too good men and Moslems to lose our lives as becomes you Franks and dog-Christians. Yet under Mohammed Ali the Great, Fellah-soldiers conquered the “colligated” Arabs (Pilgrimage iii. 48) of Al-Asir (Ophir) at Bissel and in Wahhabi-land and put the Turks to flight at the battle of Nazib, and the late General Johnmus assured me that he saved his command, the Ottoman cavalry in Syria, by always manoeuvring to refuse a pitched battle. But Mohammed Ali knew his men. He never failed to shoot a runaway, and all his officers, even the lieutenants, were Turks or Albanians. Sa’id Pasha was the first to appoint Fellah-officers and under their command the Egyptian soldier, one of the best in the East, at once became the worst. We have at last found the right way to make them fight, by officering them with Englishmen, but we must not neglect the shooting process whenever they dare to turn tail.

 

[FN#7] “Al-walh�n” (as it should be printed in previous places, instead of Al-walah�n) is certainly not a P.N. in this place.

 

[FN#8] Arab. “Kundur,” Pers. and Arab. manna, mastich, frankincense, the latter being here meant.

 

[FN#9] So Emma takes the lead and hides her lover under her cloak during their flight to the place where they intended to lie concealed. In both cases the women are the men.

 

[FN#10] Or “Bart�t,” in which we recognise the German Berthold.

 

[FN#11] i.e. Head of Killaut which makes, from the Muh�t, “the name of a son of the sons of the Jinn and the Satans.”

 

[FN#12] i.e. attacked her after a new fashion: see vol. i. 136.

 

[FN#13] i.e. Weevil’s dung; hence Suez = Suways the little weevil, or “little Sus” from the Maroccan town: see The