The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 06 (of 10)
General
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 06 (of 10)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
fetched me hot water, and I washed my hands, and his handmaids brought
me silken napkins, with which I dried them and wiped my mouth. Also the
Shaykh set apart for me an apartment in a part of his house and charged
his pages and slave-girls to wait upon me and do my will and supply my
wants. They were assiduous in my service, and I abode with him in the
guest-chamber three days, taking my ease of good eating and good
drinking and good scents till life returned to me and my terrors
subsided and my heart was calmed and my mind was eased. On the fourth
day the Shaykh, my host, came in to me and said, “Thou cheerest us with
thy company, O my son, and praised be Allah for thy safety! Say: wilt
thou now come down with me to the beach and the bazar and sell thy
goods and take their price? Belike thou mayst buy thee wherewithal to
traffic. I have ordered my servants to remove thy stock-in-trade from
the sea and they have piled it on the shore.” I was silent awhile and
said to myself, “What mean these words and what goods have I?” Then
said he, “O my son, be not troubled nor careful, but come with me to
the market and if any offer for thy goods what price contenteth thee,
take it; but, an thou be not satisfied, I will lay them up for thee in
my warehouse, against a fitting occasion for sale.” So I bethought me
of my case and said to myself, “Do his bidding and see what are these
goods!”; and I said to him, “O my nuncle the Shaykh, I hear and I obey;
I may not gainsay thee in aught for Allah’s blessing is on all thou
dost.” Accordingly he guided me to the market-street, where I found
that he had taken in pieces the raft which carried me and which was of
sandal-wood and I heard the broker calling it for sale.—And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
When it was the Five Hundred and Sixty-fifth Night,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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