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Updated: August 22, 2024
So needs must thou open to them, if they come. So when the day departed with its light and the night came, they lighted the candles and he said to her, 'Come, Zubeideh, make us music. At this moment some one knocked at the door, and she said, 'Go and see who is at the door. So he went down and opened it and seeing the dervishes, said, 'Welcome to the liars!
Moreover, O my son, I hear that they have married thee, by way of intermediation, to the lady Zubeideh the Lutanist and have imposed on thee a dowry of ten thousand dinars; wherefore I send thee also fifty thousand dinars by thy slave Selim, the bearer of these presents, whereout thou mayest pay the dowry and provide thyself with the rest. When Alaeddin had made an end of reading the letter, he took possession of the goods and turning to the old merchant, said to him, 'O my father-in-law, take the ten thousand dinars, thy daughter's dowry, and take also the loads of goods and dispose of them, and thine be the profit; only return me the cost-price. 'Nay, by Allah, answered he, 'I will take nothing; and as for thy wife's dowry, do thou settle it with her. Then they went in to Zubeideh, after the goods had been brought in, and she said to her father, 'O my father, whose goods are these? 'They belong to thy husband Alaeddin, answered he; 'his father hath sent them to him in place of those of which the Bedouins spoiled him.
Here the princess took out the jewel and rubbed the face whereon was figured a couch, whereupon a couch appeared before her and she mounted upon it with Alaeddin and Zubeideh, saying, 'O couch, I conjure thee by the virtue of the names and talismans and characters of art engraven on this jewel, rise up with us! And it rose with them into the air and flew, till I came to a desert valley, when the princess turned the face on which the couch was figured towards the earth, and it sank with them to the ground.
"I hear and obey," answered I, and she made me swear to this; after which she took her women and went off to the bath. But, by Allah, O my brothers, she had not reached the end of the street, when the door opened and in came an old woman, who said to me, "O my lord Mohammed, the lady Zubeideh bids thee to her, for she hath heard of thine elegance and accomplishments and skill in singing."
Then I heard the lady say to the Khalif, 'These chests have been committed to my charge by the Lady Zubeideh, and she does not wish their contents to be seen of any one. 'No matter, said he; 'I must open them and see what is in them. And he cried out to the eunuchs saying, 'Bring them to me. At this, I made sure of death and swooned away.
One day he went on a journey to one of his provinces and the Lady Zubeideh came to one of my waiting-women and said to her, "I have somewhat to ask of thee." "What is it, O my lady?" asked she. "When thy mistress Cout el Culoub is asleep," said Zubeideh, "put this piece of henbane up her nostrils or in her drink, and thou shalt have of me as much money as will content thee."
Then my mistress opened the chest and took me out, saying, 'Fear not: no harm shall befall thee, but be of good courage and sit down, till the Lady Zubeideh comes, and thou shalt surely win thy wish of me. So I sat down, and after awhile, in came ten maidens like moons and ranged themselves in two rows, one facing the other, and after them other twenty, high-bosomed maids with the Lady Zubeideh, who could hardly walk for the weight of her dresses and ornaments.
So the Lady Zubeideh sent for the Cadi and the witnesses, and they drew up our marriage contract, after which the women made sweetmeats and rich viands and distributed them among the inmates of the harem. Thus they did other ten days, at the end of which time my mistress entered the bath.
She found him drunken and said to him, 'O my son, none was the cause of thy release from prison but the wife of the Master of Police, and she would have thee go about to kill Alaeddin Abou esh Shamat and get his slave-girl Jessamine for her son Hebezlem Bezazeh. 'That will be the easiest of things, answered he, 'and I will set about it this very night. Now this was the first night of the new month, and it was the Khalif's wont to pass that night with the Princess Zubeideh, for the setting free of a male or female slave or what not else of the like.
He saw all the pages and damsels and eunuchs in mourning, at which his heart quaked; and when he went in to the Lady Zubeideh, he found her also clad in black. So he asked the cause of this and was told that Cout el Culoub was dead, whereupon he fell down in a swoon.
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