And so he announced his intention of not allowing his son to become a merchant, but took care to study learned books with him, and as, according to his ideas, besides learning and reverence for age, nothing became a young man more than a knowledge of arms and a courageous disposition, he had him carefully instructed in the skilful handling of weapons and all modes of defence. And so Said was able to compare favourably not only with youths of his own age, but with his elders, as an excellent fighter, and as for riding and swimming none could compete with him. When he was eighteen years of age his father sent him to Mecca to worship at the grave of the Prophet, as was customary. Before he set out his father sent for him, praised his good conduct, gave him some good advice, and provided him with money for the journey. Then he told him the following story. “I am,” said he, “a man who is above sharing the superstitions of the lower classes. It is true that I like to amuse myself by listening to stories of fairies and enchanters, but I certainly do not believe, as many of the uneducated do, that there is any truth in the suggestion that they are able to have an influence on the lives and actions of men. Your mother, however, who died twelve years ago, believed in them as firmly as she believed in the Koran; indeed, she confided to me once, after making me promise never to divulge her words to anyone but her child, that she had been in communication with a fairy from the day of her birth. I tried to laugh her out of the idea, but I must confess, Said, that at your birth such strange things occurred that even I was taken by surprise. All day long there had been a thunderstorm and the sky was so dark that it was impossible to read without a light. About four o’clock in the afternoon I was told a little son had been born to me. I hurried to your mother’s apartments to see you and bless you, but I found her door closed and all her attendants standing outside it, and on my questioning them they told me your mother had turned them all out because she wished to be alone. I knocked at the door, but in vain, it remained closed. “As I stood unwillingly amongst the attendants outside your mother’s door the thunderstorm suddenly ceased, as though it had never been, and the most surprising thing about it was that although the sky was a beautiful deep blue above our dear city of Balsora, all around it lay clouds as black as night and lightning flashed and darted around the circle of blue. “Whilst I was observing this spectacle with great curiosity, the door of my wife’s room flew open, but I would not allow the maids to enter and went in alone. As I entered my nostrils were assailed with an overpowering scent of roses, carnations and hyacinths. Your mother laid you in my arms and pointed out a little silver whistle which hung suspended from your neck by a gold chain, as fine as silk.