Arabs -- Folklore; Fairy tales; Fairy tales -- Arab countries; Folklore -- Arab countries; Tales -- Arab countries
Next morning the sultan arose with the dawn, and prepared to execute his
design, by proceeding to the Palace of Tears. He found it lighted up
with an infinite number of flambeaux of white wax, and perfumed by a
delicious scent issuing from several censers of fine gold of admirable
workmanship. As soon as he perceived the bed where the Indian lay, he
drew his cimeter and deprived him of his wretched life, dragged his
corpse into the court of the castle, and threw it into a well. After
this he went and lay down in the black's bed, placed his cimeter under
the covering, and waited to complete his design.
The queen arrived shortly after. She first went into the chamber of her
husband, the king of the Black Islands, stripped him, and with
unexampled barbarity gave him a hundred stripes. The unfortunate prince
filled the palace with his lamentations, and conjured her in the most
affecting tone to take pity on him; but the cruel wretch ceased not till
she had given the usual number of blows. "You had no compassion," said
she, "and you are to expect none from me."
After the enchantress had given her husband a hundred blows with the
whip, she put on again his covering of goat's hair, and his brocade gown
over all; she went afterward to the Palace of Tears, and as she entered
renewed her tears and lamentations; then approaching the bed, where she
thought the Indian lay: "Alas!" said she, addressing herself to the
sultan, conceiving him to be the black, "My sun, my life, will you
always be silent? Are you resolved to let me die without affording me
the comfort of hearing your voice?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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