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Updated: May 25, 2025
Then said Karazdan, "He was with me but now, in all health, and went away to fetch me the flesh of the Queen of the Serpents, if it should be cooked; what befell him that he is now dead, and what accident hath betided him?" So Hasib told him the whole truth how the Minister had drunk the contents of the phial and had forthwith swelled out and died.
Now when Hasib saw this, he wondered and feared to drink of the second phial; but he remembered the Serpent-queen's injunction and bethought him that the Wazir would not have reserved the second scum for himself, had there been aught of hurt therein.
Quoth Hasib, "To-morrow do thou go to them and say, "My son Hasib Karim al-Din hath returned from his travels; so come ye to meet him and salute him." She assented and returning to Hasib gave him their presents and message.
They returned on the morrow and thus they did several days in succession, sleeping in the town by night and drawing off the stuff by day, whilst Hasib abode on guard by it till but little remained, when they said one to other, "It was Hasib Karim al-Din found the honey, and tomorrow he will come down to the city and complain against us and claim the price of it, saying, Twas I found it; nor is there escape for us but that we let him down into the cistern, to bale out the rest of the honey, and leave him there; so will he die of hunger, and none shall know of him."
Here he landed and walking about awhile found serpents great and small, none knoweth their number save Almighty Allah, and amongst them a white Serpent, clearer than crystal, seated in a golden tray borne on the back of another serpent as big as an elephant. Now this, O Hasib, was the Serpent-queen, none other than myself." Quoth Hasib, "And what answer didst thou make him?"
So Hasib looked at his own belly and behold, it was black: but he persisted in his denial and said, "My belly was black from the day my mother bare me."
When Hasib heard this, he held his peace and burst into tears; nor did he leave weeping for the space of ten days, at the end of which time he said to the Queen, "Prithee acquaint me with the rest of Bulukiya's adventures."
Thereupon Hasib marvelled at her words and said to her, "I beseech thee, of thy favour, bid one of thy guards bear me forth to the surface of the earth, that I may go to my people."
Then they despatched one of them as messenger to the Sultan's Minister, who straightway took horse and rode, attended by threescore Mamelukes, to the baths, where he alighted and going in to Hasib, saluted him and said, "Welcome to thee!" Then he gave the bathman an hundred diners and, mounting Hasib on a horse he had brought with him, returned with him and all his men to the Sultan's palace.
Presently Hasib took horse and rode, followed by the Wazirs and Emirs and lords and all the troops, to the house which the King had set apart for him, where he sat down on a chair; and the Wazirs and Emirs came up to him and kissed hands and gave him joy of his Ministership, vying with one another in suit and service.
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