So the gazelle went to the father-in-law and said: ‘I am sent by my
master to come and tell you that after four days he will go away with
his wife to his own home.’
‘Must he really go so quickly? We have not yet sat much together, I
and Sultan Darai, nor have we yet talked much together, nor have we yet
ridden out together, nor have we eaten together; yet it is fourteen days
since he came.’
But the gazelle replied: ‘My lord, you cannot help it, for he wishes to
go home, and nothing will stop him.’
‘Very good,’ said the sultan, and he called all the people who were in
the town, and commanded that the day his daughter left the palace ladies
and guards were to attend her on her way.
And at the end of four days a great company of ladies and slaves and
horses went forth to escort the wife of Sultan Darai to her new home.
They rode all day, and when the sun sank behind the hills they rested,
and ate of the food the gazelle gave them, and lay down to sleep. And
they journeyed on for many days, and they all, nobles and slaves, loved
the gazelle with a great love--more than they loved the Sultan Darai.
At last one day signs of houses appeared, far, far off. And those who
saw cried out, ‘Gazelle!’
And it answered, ‘Ah, my mistresses, that is the house of Sultan Darai.’
At this news the women rejoiced much, and the slaves rejoiced much, and
in the space of two hours they came to the gates, and the gazelle bade
them all stay behind, and it went on to the house with Sultan Darai.
When the old woman saw them coming through the courtyard she jumped and
shouted for joy, and as the gazelle drew near she seized it in her arms,
and kissed it. The gazelle did not like this, and said to her: ‘Old
woman, leave me alone; the one to be carried is my master, and the one
to be kissed is my master.’
And she answered, ‘Forgive me, my son. I did not know this was our
master,’ and she threw open all the doors so that the master might see
everything that the rooms and storehouses contained. Sultan Darai looked
about him, and at length he said:
‘Unfasten those horses that are tied up, and let loose those people that
are bound. And let some sweep, and some spread the beds, and some cook,
and some draw water, and some come out and receive the mistress.’
And when the sultana and her ladies and her slaves entered the house,
and saw the rich stuffs it was hung with, and the beautiful rice that
was prepared for them to eat, they cried: ‘Ah, you gazelle, we have seen
great houses, we have seen people, we have heard of things. But this
house, and you, such as you are, we have never seen or heard of.’
After a few days, the ladies said they wished to go home again. The
gazelle begged them hard to stay, but finding they would not, it brought
many gifts, and gave some to the ladies and some to their slaves. And
they all thought the gazelle greater a thousand times than its master,
Sultan Darai.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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