Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 1
General
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 1
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
The magician, thus disguised like the holy woman Fatima, spent the
remainder of the night in the cell, after he had committed so horrid a
murder. The next morning, two hours after sunrise, though it was not a
day the holy woman used to go out on, he crept out of the cell, being
well persuaded that nobody would ask him any questions about it; or, if
they should, he had an answer ready for them. As one of the first things
he did after his arrival was to find out Aladdin’s palace, where he was
to execute his designs, he went directly thither.
As soon as the people saw the holy woman, as they imagined him to be,
they presently gathered about him in a great crowd. Some begged his
blessing, others kissed his hand, and others, more reserved, only the
hem of his garment: while others, whether their heads ached, or they had
a mind to be preserved against that distemper, stooped for him to lay
his hands upon them; which he did, muttering some words in form of
prayer, and, in short, counterfeited so well, that everybody took him
for the holy woman.
After frequently stopping to satisfy these kind of people, who received
neither good nor harm from this imposition of hands, he came at last to
the square before Aladdin’s palace. The crowd was so great that the
eagerness to get at him increased in proportion. Those who were the most
zealous and strong, forced their way through the crowd to get room.
There were such quarrels, and so great a noise, that the princess, who
was in the hall of four-and-twenty windows, heard it, and asked what was
the matter; but nobody being able to give her an account, she ordered
them to go and see, and inform her. One of her women looked out of a
window, and then told her it was a great crowd of people that were
gathering about the holy woman, to be cured of the headache by the
imposition of her hands.
The princess, who had for a long time heard a great deal of this holy
woman, but had never seen her, conceived a great curiosity to have some
conversation with her, which the chief of the eunuchs perceiving, told
her it was an easy matter to bring her to her, if she desired and
commanded it; and the princess shewing a desire, he immediately sent
four eunuchs for the pretended holy woman.
As soon as the crowd saw the eunuchs coming, they made way, and the
magician perceiving also that they were coming for him, advanced to meet
them, overjoyed to find his plot took so well. “Holy woman,” said one of
the eunuchs, “the princess wants to see you, and has sent us for you.”
“The princess does me too great an honour,” replied the false Fatima; “I
am ready to obey her command,” and at the same time followed the eunuchs
to the palace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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