•
S
II
•HRVKEaKl
X CHILDREN'S BOOK * COLLECTION
I * I
^ LIBRARY OF THE jfr
i UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 3t
LOS ANGELES
<Sc Jjbrh
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
Collection of Children's Books
ABDALLAH AT THE CAVERN.
•vf , •• '
THE MAGIC RING,
A.ND OTHER
ORIENTAL FAIRY TALES.
FROM THE GERMAN OT HERDER, LIEBESKIND, AND CBTTHMA.OHSK.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK: JAMES MILLER, 522 BROADWAY.
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by
JAMES MILLER,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
<X A. ALVOBD. STEREOTYPES AND PH1NTWL
ADVERTISEMENT.
THE whole of this series is from the cel- ebrated sources mentioned in the title page, with the exception of Tales VIL, XL, XVIII., and XXVIL, which, of his own writing, the Translator has taken the liberty to incorporate into so praiseworthy a collection.
INDEX.
PAGE. IHTBODUOTION — OBERON AND TlTANIA 13
TALE I. — TflE JOURNEY 21
II.— THE MAGIC RING 25
III. — THE DREAM OF MIRZA. 51
IV. — ABDALLAH 61
V. — THE THREE SONS 74
VI. — THE JOURNEY TO BABYLON 77
VIE. — EL RAKHAM; OR THE MARRIAGE-COLLAR 82
VIII. — THE BIRDS OP SOLOMON 112
IX. — THE QUEEN OP THE MOUNTAINS 120
X.— THE PRISONER 129
XL — THE ENCHANTED WELL 135
XII. — THE MAN OP SENSIBILITY 144
XIII. — THE Ass OP DADSCHIAL 148
XIV. — THE WATER OP LIFE 157
XV.— THE RECOMPENSE 161
XVI. — THE BLUE PALM-TREE 163
XVII. — THE CONSOLATION IN MISFORTUNE 169
XVIIL— THE KING AND THE GOATHERD 171
XIX. — THE PEASANT OP BILBIS 182
XX.— THE TRANSFORMATION .. ..186
10 INDEX.
PAGB.
TALE TOTT, — THE DREAM OF ALMET 190
XXH.— THE VISION OP BOSSALDAB 200
XXLIL— THE BEST PATRIMONY 208
XXTV. — QUEEN AMBERBOAH 210
XXV.— HYPOCRISY 222
XXVI.— MOSTANSER. 225
XXVIL — THE FAIRY BARQUE 227
XXVHL— THE TRAVELERS. 240
"STYIY — MAHMOOD'S MIRROR 253
XYX. — THE PRUDENT VIZIER 256
TTYT — ALAEDDIN 259
XXXII. — FIDELITY PUT TO THE TEST 284
XXXIIL— THE SACRED FIBE 288
XXXIV. — THE ADROIT REPROOF 290
NOTES. — 1. Origin of PARXELL'S Hermit, and similar Apo- logues, and of imaginary Visions like the Dream of Mirza,
— p. 292 2. Dervises, — p. 293 3. Their Dances, —
p. 294 4. Antiquity of the Story of the Three Sons,—
p. 294. . . .5. The pretended Language of Birds and other
of the Lower Animals, — p. 295 6. Asmugh, — p. 296
7. Rajah,— p. 296 8. Calenders,— p. 296
9. Mohammedan Saints, — p. 297 10. Mollah, — p. 298
....11. Imam, — p. 299 12. Festivals of Bairam, —
p. 299 13. Emir,— p. 300 34. Gueber,— p. 300.
INTRODUCTION.
(BY THE TRANSLATOR.)
THE King and Queen of Fairyland sat in their chosen bower beneath entwining lilies and roses, in whose cups blithe fairies wan- toned, and whose leaves were sprinkled with the misty spray of a fountain which threw up its arrowy jets by the monarch's side. The full moon, rising from behind a mountain in the background, threw its soft effulgence over part of the scene and over the figures of the fairies, and sparkled in the upspringing water of the fountain, while deep shadow gave mys- tery and solemn grandeur to all the rest. Over the King's head a will- with-the- wisp, becom- ing constant for the time, had settled in some- thing like the form of a star, and gave his light to make more evident to the King the charms of his companion.
14 INTRODUCTION.
It matters not where was this moonlight bower, whether in the east or the west, the north or the south; for is not the dominion of the fairies everywhere? and is it not all dream-land? And matters it as little what names the couple bore. But they are re- nowned by the poets and storytellers of the western world as OBERON and TITANIA, and by the little ones and growing ones of the western world they would be recognized by no other names.
The fairy-king was in thoughtful mood — not unusual with him, by the way, when his spouse was by — and the Queen, after gaz- ing on him for a while, put one hand on his shoulder, and with the other took his hand that rested on his knee, and, looking up lov- ingly in his face, asked him what absorbed him.
"I am thinking, my TITANIA," replied the King, "how our realm that was once univer sal over men is fast lessening. Time was, when we did a thousand wonders daily, and by our power the good were set high in pros-
ffl.lt
Cf
OHEHOX AM) TITAXIA.
INTRODUCTION.
15
perity and the evil were abased. It was such. a delight when we could raise the patient Cin- derella from the dust, and make her sisters
by their very malice contribute to the advance- ment of her they affected to despise ! And what a joy to make the gentle Beauty love the Beast for the kind heart that beat under his horrible exterior, and by her filial tender- ness and self-sacrificing devotion restore him to his former shape as a handsome and prince- ly man! But now, what do we do? what
16
INTRODUCTION.
ca/n we do ? The civilization of the West has made our aid superfluous, and to be something still we must turn our faces to the rising sun. There where, like man, we had our origin, the fountain of our power wells up still ; but the children of the setting sun regard us not, and those for whom we have done so much laugh at us ungratefully, and by their very doubte of us annul our power."
INTRODUCTION". 17
"Yet confess it still."
"How so, TITANIA? The very housemaid disregards us, now that no more she finds the sixpence that rewarded tidiness."
"But though the housemaid may, she who is ignorant, yet is our sway, dear OBERON, over the minds and hearts of the children of the housewife, who are not. Think of the thou- sands, of the millions, that daily feed upon the honey of the wisdom which has been hived with us. Who teach the path of sense and prudence ? Who point to the rewards of gen- tleness and goodness, and to the punishment of tyranny and fraud? Is it not we? Say not, then, my OBERON, that our rule is lessen- ing; it is stronger than ever, where alone it is worth anything, over the hearts and minds of the children of men. Millions read of us, where formerly only hundreds heard ; and these millions everywhere are bettered; and the service- that we do them thus, though indi- rectly, is worth more than the diamonds we once made drop from the mouth of the sweet- spokeu and the charitable, or the gorgeous
18
INTRODUCTION.
lot that we reserved for the loyal and the bold."
"Thou art right," said the King, pressing her hand delightedly; "thy woman's wit is better than my wisdom."
" Should it not be so ?" replied TITANIA, smil- ing. " Is it not the mothers who bring up the babes, and give the growing child its earliest lesson to know right from wrong?"
" True, and that lesson, who help them teach it, if not we ? We inspire the rhymer and the tale-teller, and it is of our wonders are made
INTRODUCTION. 19
those pleasant fictions which instruct while amusing, which open the young imagination, and make it able to do something better than deceive the heart."
" So, then, inspire them still, my OBERON. Give to the conscientious writer the love of truth, of lofty honor; let him inculcate obe- dience to parents, fidelity to country, kindness, forbearance, and beneficence to all men. And while, with this inspiration, he writes our won- ders which he can but fancy, what does he but extend and make perpetual our realm ?"
"True, my TITANIA. And so shall he stall. We will kindle now the imagination of some of our true worshippers in Germany, that wes- tern land which has done so much to maintain our honor among men. And they shall give the little ones we love the soundest lessons through the wildest fancies."
"But enlighten, pray, their artists, too, or they will put thee in our "bower with an earth- ly crown upon thy head, instead of the wreath of roses and of lilies which thou lovest, like me, to wear."
20
INTRODUCTION.
" Be it so. It is only by their crown and power to do mischief that most kings are known."
ORIENTAL TALES.
L
THE JOURNEY.
ON the last day of the month of Ramadan, in the sixth year of the reign of the Sheik YAHAN, Father of the Faithful, a short time before the hour of the second prayer, OGLUF- KHAN, chief of the royal guard, entered my chamber, and said :
" ABDALLAH, may the order I bring thee be for thy good ! Give me thy sabre, and follow me to the Sultan : it is he who sends me."
I prostrated myself, and having made a brief prayer,
" OGLTJF-KHAN," I replied, " put thy hand upon my head : the Sultan is master of my life ; I am his slave."
I surrendered him my sabre. He preceded me, and I followed. There was a guard before the door of my dwelling. It surrounded me,
22 ORIENTAL TALES.
and led ine, through the court of the palace, to the presence of the Sheik YAHAN, Nobody was near him, save the general EMIR JEMBAH, and the high-priest FASSEL-KHAN. OGLUF- KHAN, who marched before me, presented him my sabre, and said :
" Star of true believers ! ABDALLAH has submitted, without resistance, to thy order. May all thy enemies follow his example !"
Though I was convinced of my innocence, my heart was troubled. But I assumed an in- trepid air, and manifested no fear. The Sultan did not appear irritated ; yet I was not therefore more assured : for is there need of anger to kill a fly? When he saw me at his feet, he said to me:
" Son of STANIF, let us pray, and prostrate ourselves before Him who never dies."
These words increased my anguish. The Sultan, the general, the high-priest, the cap- tain of the guard, and even the guards them- selves that remained at the door, knelt down, inclined their foreheads to the earth, and prayed. I supplicated the Prophet that he
THE JOURNEY. 23
would be pleased to intercede for me with God, and be my protector.
" Messenger of God, (thus spake my soul,) if I have kept my hands pure of every crime ; if my purpose to visit thy tomb and bedew the sacred mount with my tears was sincere ; if thy holy book has been to this day the joy of my heart and the light of my eyes — come to my assistance ! My days approach their end ; already do I see descending the dark angel of death. Remember thee of my faith : there is but one God, and thou art his Prophet"
"When the prayer was ended, the Sultan arose, turned himself to me, and said :
" Son of STANIF, bow thy head : thou art going to take a long journey."
" Father of the Faithful," I replied intrep- idly, "yes, the journey is long, and without return. We shall all of us take it, when our hour is arrived. May God, in. His favor and His mercy, prolong thy years !"
After these words, I leaned upon my knees, and presented my neck. He drew my sabre, which he had kept in his hand even during the
24 ORIENTAL TALES.
prayer. He raised his arm; but, instead of cutting off my head, he restored the blade to its scabbard. The bystanders uttered loud cries of joy. I opened my eyes, which I had already closed in the belief that I was on the verge of death. How delightful my astonish- ment ! the Sheik YAH AN raised me with a smile of friendship, embraced me, and praised my courage and obedience.
" ABDALLAH," said he, " if the road of death affrights thee not, thou wilt not fear to go to the island of BORIKO, to seek for me the water of life which there flows."
"My lord," I answered, "I fear none on the earth save thee. I ask nothing better than to set sail, should it be for the end of the world : for, even in one's house, one is not under shel- ter from death."*
* For the continuation of the adventures of ABDALLAH, see the story of The Magic Ring, immediately following.
^SS^^JZ^Y
ABT) ALLAH AXD THE SULTAX.
THE MAGIC RING. 25
II,
THE MAGIC KIKG.
ABDALLAH, son of STAJSTIF, received from his master SCHAH-YAHAN, Sultan of India, orders to go to the Island of Boriko, to seek there the water of life;* whose source, according to an ancient tradition, is to be found in that island. The accomplishment of such a commission was not easy, because nobody knew in what part of the world the island was situated; but as ABDALLAH could not escape the will of the Sultan, and as he had heart enough to hazard anything, he departed from Agra the next day at early dawn.
Whatever was the courage of our traveler, his adventurous enterprise did not fail to awake in his mind painful ideas. He was on horse- back, absorbed in his reflections ; he had out- ridden by some hundred paces the caravan
* See above, Tale I. — " Tlie Journey."
2i5 THE MAGIC RING.
with which he had set out ; when, all of a sud- den, he perceived a young man, who like him- self kept aloof from the rest of the company. The grave demeanor of this traveler, who ap- peared to be a person of distinction and of for- tune, excited his curiosity. He approached within a certain distance of him, and he heard him say, in a voice quite loud :
" Yes, if I do not gain this time, I am lost beyond help !"
At these words, hearing a light noise, he turned with a frightened look, as if he were afraid of having said too much. ABDALLAH saluted him in a friendly manner, spoke of different things, gained by little and little his confidence, and at last inquired the cause of his sadness.
" I am called ALMORADDIN," said the young man, " and I am the only son of a merchant, who, three years ago, was one of the richest of Cambogia. His great tenderness for me has made him lose the greatest part of his fortune, and will precipitate him, as I fear but too much, into the most frightful poverty. Alas ! and
THE MAGIC RING. 27
it is I who am the cause of his misfortune ! it is I who drag him to the abyss towards which a senseless love pushes me, a passion without hope ! — Some of my friends, having resolved to go on a commercial enterprise to Siam, engaged me to go with them : they represented to me that it was much more glorious to roam the world and acquire riches, than to pass one's days in idleness. I suffered myself to be easily convinced ; I obtained the permission of a father who never refused me anything. He equipped for me a fine vessel, loaded it with precious merchandise, and, after having recommended me to be watchful and true, he let me depart with my friends. We coasted the shores of India ; we passed Ceylon ; we arrived at Suma- tra ; which island we doubled, because of the contrary winds, that had denied us an entrance into the straits of Malacca.
" One day that I was on the deck of the vessel, I saw on a neighboring shore a large city with a handsome bridge. I asked the pilot the name of the city, and expressed to him my desire of disembarking there.
28 THE MAGIC RING.
" ' It is,' the pilot answered me, l the capital of the kingdom of Baros ; whose young Queen, ZALIKAH, passes for the greatest beauty of the East. In virtue of a certain law whereof she is the author, a great number of imprudent lovers have found their destruction in that city. If then my advice has any credit with you, let us regard this place as' a rock of peril, and keep far from it.'
" < What is that law ?' I said. ' Thou excitest my curiosity.'
" ' No vessel can enter this port,' he answered, ' without its proprietor's asking the hand of the Queen. The Queen then, as marrying him, puts a ring upon the middle finger of his right hand. If on the next day he can still show the ring, the Queen will acknowledge him for her husband ; but if he lose it during the night — which has happened to all those who have risked this adventure — his vessel with the crew and the cargo is taken from him, and he him- self is driven with shame from the country at dawn of day.'
" fc Though I should die for it,' I exclaimed,
THE MAGIC RING. 29
1 1 must know what is in that ring ! Perhaps I shall be more fortunate than my predecessors ; perhaps I shall obtain the prize.'
" The pilot, seeing that I persisted in my project, at length yielded, and entered the port with all sail set. On my disembarking, the Queen's guard received me, and led me to the castle. What emotions agitated me when I saw her ! I remained as it were enchanted ; I took her for a fairy who wished to dazzle mortals by her beauty. Her eyes shone like two stars ; on her lips reigned grace and tender- ness ; and her least gestures were full of noble- ness and dignity. My soul flew upon the wings of hope, like a flame which, driven by the wind, rises towards heaven : I thought it would be the easiest thing in the world to keep the ring, when once in my possession.
" The Queen took me by the hand, ordered me to sit beside her, and asked me if the law of the land were known to me.
" < Fair Queen,' I said, i I know the law ; I could wish only to possess the secret of fulfill- ing it.'
30 THE MAGIC RING.
" ' The law,' she said, • is very gentle for him who can satisfy its conditions. But it is fai from being harsh for others ; for, with all its severity, it still permits them to dispose of their persons.'
" The Queen inquired my name, and the ob- ject of my voyage. All that I told her seemed to please her ; and my hope augmented with my love.
"After supper, the Yiziers ranged themselves about me in a semicircle. The Queen placed herself in their front, and asked me if I loved her, and if I demanded her in marriage. On my replying in the affirmative, she drew a ring from her finger, and passed it on the middle finger of my left hand.
" ' If thou canst keep that token of my affec- tion until to-morrow,' said she, ' 1 will be thine forever.'
" At these words, she retired. Two of her domestics conducted me to a sleeping-chamber, and left me alone. After having closed the door, I examined all the corners of the apart- ment;, but I found nothing that appeared to
QUEEN ZALIKAH.
THE MAGIC RING. 31
me suspicious. At length, after having long reflected on the means of keeping the ring, and seeing that I could turn it without detaching it from the finger, I could devise nothing better than to remain awake all night. I seated my- self on a sofa, keeping my hands close together, to await thus the morning : but I fell asleep, 1 know not how. On the morrow, two men came to awaken me, shaking me by the arms, and saying, in a hoarse voice, 4 Remember the law !' I opened my eyes : I looked at my hand, and cursed sleep ; for the ring of gold had disap- peared. The two men, who were armed, made me quit the palace, and the town, and forbade me, under pain of death, to return without a new ship.
" Arrived in my country, after many difficul- ties and dangers, I went in search of one of my friends. I meanly made him believe that my vessel had struck upon a rock, and I prayed him to inform my father of that calamity. My tender parent forgot that he had lost the third of his fortune, when he learned that I was still alive and near him. He came in person t<"»
32 THE MAGIC RING.
meet me, embraced me with great joy, and said to me :
" ' Let us console ourselves, my son. The sea, in not depriving thee of life, has left us a great deal more than she has ravished from us. We shall be still rich enough, because we shall be contented.'
" He took me home, and treated me with as much kindness as though I had brought him back great treasures.
" I might still have been happy, had I been wise ; but the remembrance of the past left me no repose. Queen ZALIKAH alone lived in my thoughts, and without her there was no more joy for me upon the earth. As I could not hope • that my father would consent to let me depart a second time, I wished not to afflict him, and I sought to conceal from him my grief. But the nearer the spring approached, the season when my friends were to undertake a new voyage, the more my sadness augmented. My father, who perceived it, asked the reason of my affliction.
" I could not bear to tell him the real cause
THE MAGIC KING. 33
of my distress, and, again unmindful of truth, I said:
" ' I am ashamed, in presence of my friends, not to be able to repair the loss I have expe- rienced. Such is the cause of my secret grief.'
" ' My son,' said my father, ' if thou wouldst follow my advice, thou wouldst be content with our present possessions without going to expose thyself to new dangers. However, if thou persistest in thy project of trying a second time thy fortune, I will not be to thee an ob- stacle.'
" I felt that I did not merit this tender affec- tion, and I began to weep. This sign, which my poor father took for that of gratitude, gained him entirely.^- He equipped a new vessel, still more richly laden than the first ; he repeated to me his former warnings, en- gaged me to be vigilant and upright, and I sailed, for the second time, with my friends, content as if I held the prize of my future vic- tory— content, alas ! as if I had not deceived my father.
" When I neared the island of the Queen, I
34 THE MAGIC RING.
retarded my course, I suffered the other vessels to get the advance of me, and I took, at night- fall, another direction. My crew united to endeavor to dissuade me ; but they talked to a deaf man. The pilot quitted the helm ; 1 took his place, and myself directed the vessel toward the spot whither a blind passion urged me. I was the first lover who had returned thither. The Queen appeared to admire my fidelity; I even thought I discovered in her some inclina- tion for me. I had had made for me a circle of iron, which could not be opened without employing great force. I attached it to my left hand, and concealed the key in my bosom. All was useless. The guard awoke me in the morning ; the ring was lost ; and I was obliged to return to my country, poor and miserable."
Sighs and tears here interrupted the recital of the young merchant.
" Thy rare misfortune deserves the tears which thou sheddest," replied the prudent ABDALLAH ; " but thou art yet happy, since thou hast learned, by that double loss, how necessary it is to avoid dangers and to conquer
THE MAGIC RING. 35
one's passions. Just experience is never bought too dear."
" Alas !" cried ALMORADDIN, " I am not be- come more prudent ; my folly exceeds every*- thing. I am going a third time whither my destiny draws me. The vessel is ready. My father, wrho so lately deplored a second ship- wreck, has consented to a third trial, which, probably will plunge both him and myself into great misery. "We have sold all our possessions, and my father has besides pledged his liberty ; for if a year hence, he cannot restore the rich MAHMOOT the ten thousand pieces of gold which he has borrowed from him, he will be compelled to be his slave."
The tender solicitude of the father and the blind passion of the son, who, despite his obsti- nate folly, loved greatly the author of his days, excited ABDALLAH'S compassion.
" The object of my travel," said he, " does not yield a step in extravagance to thine. I seek an island in which, it is said, there is a spring of precious water that restores old men' to youth. As I know not where the island Is
36 THE MAGIC RING.
situated, and as every way appears to me equally good to conduct me thither, if thou hast confidence in me, I will accompany thee, Perhaps I shall be of service to thee by my counsels : for often a foolish enterprise, executed with prudence and circumspection, terminates by bringing about a happy issue : two persons always see better than one."
ALMORADDIN avowed that a prudent friend had till then been always wanting to him, and consented with pleasure to ABDALLAH'S pro- posal. They both embarked at Cambogia, and set sail for the island of the Queen.
When they approached it, they agreed upon the conduct which they should maintain, and entered the port full of courage. Not far from the city they cast anchor, and landed ; and the guard, to the sound of drums and cornets, led them to the Queen's palace. The people ran together from all parts, and were astonished to see these rash strangers. A great number of individuals, who recognized ALMORADDIN, cried out to him " to manage better this time !"
ABDALLAH, when he saw the beautiful ZA-
THE MAGIC KING. 37
LIKAH, began to find less blamable the folly of his friend : it seemed to him that the sun of spring was rising before him, so lovely and so brilliant appeared the Queen upon her golden throne.
" The man who is wise," thought he, " will follow the counsel of the pilot, and, far from wishing to enter this haven, will fly from it with terror ; for no mortal can resist this en- chanting woman."
Fifty of the handsomest maidens surrounded the Queen, as the host of stars encompass the moon when she is shining in the heavens. On each side of her were Emirs* and Yiziers, armed, as if they wished to prevent all access to her. When the strangers drew near, and had respectfully inclined before her, she ad- vanced to meet them with much grace.
" By day," she said, " when ALMORADDIN comes to our island, one would suppose him a prodigy of love and fidelity ; but unhappily, at night he deceives his friends, and robs them of that belief."
* In this place, nobles of the highest rank. — See Note ] 3.
38 THE MAGIC RING.
As ALMORADDIN trembled with joy and in- quietude, and answered nothing to this allega- tion, the Queen addressed his companion. AB- DALLAH had made himself pass for a merchant who accompanied ALMORADDIN out of friend- ship. In testimony of his respect, he offered the Queen a necklace of precious pearls, and prayed her to be pleased to look with a favor- able eye on this little homage of his poverty.
" This handsome present," she replied, " at- tests the great riches of ALMORADDIN. He has already expended for me what, without friends of ABD ALLAH'S disposition, must have plunged him into misery."
Whilst ALMORADDIN entertained the Queen with his voyage, ABDALLAH mingled with the courtiers, made divers pleasant remarks, and managed to render himself agreeable to all. He contradicted no one, and spoke to each one according to his tastes. Although he affected simplicity of mind, he managed to turn the conversation according to his desire, and to explore the sentiments of the court with regard to ALMORADDIN. He found everybody favor-
THE MAGIC RING. 39
able to his friend. Some praised his beauty, his gallantry, and his gentleness of temper; others deplored the ill fortune which he had had hitherto, and added that the Queen herself had lamented it — which had not yet happened in the case of any of her former lovers. He perceived, too, that the Queen was not insen- sible to the merit of ALMOKADDIN ; she gazed on him long and often ; and when their eyes met, she depressed her own with blushes, fearing that her embarrassment would be remarked. All this made ABDALLAH think that the Queen was not willingly the cause of ALMOKADDIN'S ill fortune ; but he could not discover the real author of it. The courtiers affected to know nothing about it, and carefully eluded his questions.
At length he met a young Vizier, whose manners were very singular. He winked with the eyes, and twisted his mouth like a man who is mocking others ; he walked on tiptoe ; and, at every step he made, he looked at his feet as if he were admiring their beauty and their ornaments. ABDALLAH thought that this was
40 THE MAGIC RING.
the man to whom he should address himself. He saluted him humbly, made him many rev- erences, and began to talk of the rare talent of the female slaves who were dancing before the Queen. The Vizier became immediately elo- quent; he dilated with complaisance on the fine art of free motions, boasted his own skill, and conceived in brief time a tender friendship for the stranger who knew how to natter in so agreeable a fashion.
" Though it be very difficult," said ABDALLAH, " to push the art of dancing as far as my lord the Yizier, it would seem nevertheless that the art of keeping the Queen's gold ring offers still greater difficulties."
The young Vizier made a motion of ridicule, lifted his chin upward, and closed his little eyes.
"Oh no!" said he, ." that is not really so difficult ; all the secret lies in a trick. He who discovers it cannot lose the ring."
" That is just what I have heard," replied ABDALLAH ; " but, must I avow it ? I cannot believe it. Can it be possible that not one of
THE MAGIC RING. 41
those numerous lovers should have yet discov- ered that trick? There must be something else."
" No, no," continued the young Yizier ; " I can assure you that it is so. Unluckily, it is forbidden to speak of it, because the Queen has interdicted all conversation on the subject."
" And she is right in that," replied ABDAL- LAH ; " for a crafty stranger might in that way learn, without deserving it, the true means of success, and deceive the good Queen."
" That is true," replied the young Yizier, smiling ; " and in that case all the precaution of the old aunt would become useless."
" An amiable young nobleman has just recited to me the history of that aunt," said ABDALLAH, " but in so confused a manner that I cannot comprehend it."
" "Who was it ?" asked the Yizier, with an air of some curiosity.
" There, at the end of the hall, that young nobleman," replied ABDALLAH, indicating with his finger a courtier with a very silly look.*
* The Translator desires earnestly to warn his young friends
42 THE MAGIC R1XG.
" All ! he's a ninny, who knows nothing,5' continued the Vizier, making a slight grimace, to cause a smile. " This is her history ; and I guaranty its truth.
" The last Queen, AISCHAH, aunt of the beau- tiful ZALIKAH, had at her court a great magician. As she was young and queen of a great empire, a great number of lovers solicited her hand. In order not to be deceived in her selection, she caused to be made, by the magician, a ring by means of which she put the good faith of her lovers to the proof. A great many kings and sons of kings presented themselves ; but not one of them was found faithful. During these trials, Queen AISCHAH grew old, and died some years since, without having found a husband of fidelity such as she desired. Vexed at her evil destiny, she made the Emirs of the realm swear never to permit her niece to marry a
against the example of this duplicity. The craft of ABDALLAH is quite Oriental: it is the wisdom of ULYSSES, and of the heroes of the Arabian Nights : but it is not the less censurable ; nor, with however good motives it may be used, is it worthy of an upright character. Nothing — let the young reader remember this — nothing can excuse a falsehood or justify deceit.
THE MAGIC RING. 43
man who should not have gone through the trial of the ring. Now, as this ring has the power to put to sleep, nobody has yet been met who has not succumbed. They all sleep pro- foundly ; and the Queen the next day always finds the ring again on her finger. To resist this magic slumber, there is, according to tradition, but one means — which consists in a particular management of the ring ; an operation which the Queen herself is still ignorant of. She cannot then betray the secret, even though she should wish it ; and all her hope of having one day a husband rests on this, that one of her lovers may, by accident, discover the secret."
" That is easily comprehended. The young man I showed you understood the thing but half," said ABDALLAH; and he left the hall — certain of ALMORADDIN'S people having conie to inquire after him. They reported that a move- ment had taken place among the crew of the vessel, and that one party was raging against the other ; that the more feeble faction could not defend itself, and threatened to set the ship on fire ; that all was lost, if ALMORADDIN did
44 THE MAGIC RING.
not appear on the very instant to cairn their minds. ABDALLAH conducted the sailors before the Queen, and made them repeat their news. The Queen wished to send her guard ; but AB- DALLAH entreated her with so much urgency, that she suffered him at length to go himself to satisfy his people. He ran with ALMORAD- DLN" to the bridge. From afar they heard the cries and the clashing of swords ; but the mo- ment they appeared on the deck of the vessel, the combatants laid down their sabres and made peace. All this combat was but an artifice which ABDALLAH had concerted with ALMORAD- DIN, in order that they might have an opportu- nity to deliberate once more on what they were to do.*
" Well ! what hast thou discovered ?" asked ABDALLAH.
" Alas ! my friend," replied ALMORADDIX, weeping, and throwing himself on ABDALLAH'S bosom, " if thou hast no counsel to glre me, I am again lost. Insensate that I am! in the hope of obtaining an unworthy sorceress, I have * See. and reflect on, the previous note. — TRAKSL.
THE MAGIC RING. 45
sold my father, my most faithful friend, as a slave. Oh ABDALLAH, succor me, save me from that abyss ! I have been deceived ; she loves me not : she entices me by her affability, in order that she may the more easily ruin me."
" Well ! let us hoist anchor, and fly," said ABDALLAH ; " for, it would be madness to expose ourself for one who does not love us."
ALMOKADDIN turned pale, and appeared frightened.
c; Courage !" continued ABDALLAH, smiling ; " fate favors thee more than thou thinkest. Thy fear has deceived thee : the Queen is inno- cent."
After which, he related to him all that he had seen and heard.
" As thou canst turn the ring without remov- ing it from the finger," he resumed, " I think I have discovered the charm. The ring is to prove if the lovers love the Queen in good faith. But true love cannot remain idle : it is unceasingly in motion ; it lives in perpetual toil ; it turns without ceaskig about itself, as a wheelj which is never but at one distance from
46 THE MAGIC RING.
its axle. Therefore I am of opinion that thou shouldst turn the ring without discontinuing. If, despite of this continual motion, it lose none of its soporific force, thou wilt again have made a useless voyage. I can give thee no better counsel."
AL.MOKADDIN, ravished with the discovery, embraced ABDALLAH.
" Thou hast found the true means," he said : " I never slept but at the moment when I left the ring at rest. I had good faith, but not pru- dence ; and therefore it is that the pledge of union was always ravished from me ; for the spouse of Queen ZALIKAH must possess at once both those virtues."
They returned to the palace, joyous and full of hope. ALMORADDIN invented a description of the riot which the Queen appeared to think real. The night arrived, and, the banquet over, the Yiziers formed the circle. When AL- MORADDIN, after reserving the immunity of his friend, had answered in the affirmative to the Queen's question, she put the ring of gold on
THE MAGIC KING. 47
his finger, saying : " My spouse must be faith- ful to me, even in his faults."
She retired ; and ALMOKADDIN was conducted to the same apartment in which he had already passed two nights. But this time, instead of negligently placing his two hands upon his limbs, he kept the ring in perpetual movement. Sleep did not seize upon him : on the contrary, it seemed to him that he could forever remain awake. At length the dawn broke ; and then the ring would no longer turn : it remained immovable ; an involuntary sleep took posses- sion of his senses, and, no longer able to resist its influence, he slumbered tranquilly.
Awakened by the sound of drums, cornets, and tymbals, which resounded in the palace, he opened his eyes and saw the four oldest Yiziers, who, on their knees, saluted him with the title of $ultan, and conducted him, clothed in the costume of his new rank, to the Queen. She was seated on her throne, surrounded by all her Emirs, her Yiziers, and her women. Joy beamed in her beautiful eyes ; her cheeks blushed like the buds of the rose ; and all her
48 THE MAGIC RING.
movements appeared animated by a sense of happiness lively and profound. ALMORADDIN could scarcely walk for joy. In the excess of his rapture, he kneeled upon the last step of the throne. But the Queen went to meet her betrothed, extended him her hand, and made him ascend to the seat beside her.
" ALMORADDIN," she said, " has satisfied the law in its fullest extent. His love was not to be repulsed ; it has at last obtained the victory. I am united to him ; he has retained the pledge of his affection : therefore," said she, address- ing the assembly, " I name him your king and my spouse."
The Emirs clapped their hands, and cried :
" Long live the beautiful ZALIKAH, our Queen ! Long live King ALMORADDIN, her spouse ! May Heaven give them children that shall have hearts to love us, arms to protect us, and tongues to render thanks to God !"
" Crafty ABDALLAH ! you have deceived us," said the Queen, when the ceremonies were ter- minated. »
" No, fair Queen," replied ABDALLAH, " we
THE MAGIC RING. 49
have only taken measures not to be deceived ourselves a third time : fidelity without pru- dence never reaches its aim in a hazardous enterprize."
ALMOKADDIN appeared never tired of embrac- ing his sagacious friend.
" Without thee," he said, " I should be ruined, and my father with me ; for by myself I should never have found the solution of the problem. Renounce thy project, and remain with us : let us share everything as brothers. Why expose one's self to perils that have no certain object? for thou knowest not even if there be in any part of the world an island of Boriko."
"What!" said ABDALLAH, "courage and pru- dence have made thee attain thy end, and I should renounce mine ! No, ALMOKADDIN ; I have vowed fidelity to the Sultan my master ; I must keep the vow, though I should have to travel half the earth without result."
In fact, at the expiration of a year, ABDAL- LAH returned from his perilous voyage. He had discovered the doubtful island, and taken water from its secret spring. He paid a visit
50 THE MAGIC RING.
to King ALMOKADDIN, and found him by the cradle of his son, with his father and his spouse. They received him, all three, as one receives a benefactor to whom he owes his joy and the happiness of life. ABDALLAH poured them out a glass of his rejuvenating water. ALMOKAD- DIN and ZALIKAH drank of it but very little, and gave the greatest part to the old father who had pledged his liberty for their happiness. The old man gained new powers by the draught, as a flower that is fading gathers vigor from a refreshing rain, and he lived almost as long as his good children. But the Sheikh YAHAN, to whom ABDALLAH had brought a great number of vases of the water, was none the better for it. He drank of it immoderately and out of season. Therefore he died sooner than he would have died without it.*
* That is, in an immoderate desire of prolonging his term of life, he abridged it. — And thus ends, with a new lesson of true wisdom, this very beautiful Tale ; of which the Translator once more begs the young reader to gather only the honey, leaving what is pernicious — the craft of the Ulyssean ABDALLAH, un- appropriated.
THE DREAM OF MIEZA. 61
III.
THE DKEAM OF MIKZA.
MY head cast down, I was walking, in tifniction, on the banks of the Euphrates. The sun was setting behind the mountain-tops, and all living things in nature were filled with delight at the soft splendor which flooded both earth and heaven ; I alone was sad.
" No," I exclaimed within myself, " there is no Providence that watches over men: they are insects without name, and their wretched life is given up to chance ! Are not the wicked happy, while the good languish ? "
Thus I spoke. I sat myself beneath a palm-tree, I gazed upon the murmuring waves of the river, and I wept. The day had fled, and night was approaching without
52 ORIENTAL TALES.
my perceiving it. Suddenly a brilliant light surrounded me ; the river and the trees shone as at noonday. A shuddering seized me ; I lifted up my eyes ; and behold ! a young man, clothed in a vestment white as snow, appeared before me.
" MIRZA," he said, " I am ALBUNOH SAIIA- EEDDIN, a servant of the Most High, and the interpreter of his secrets. He has heard thy complaints, and he sends me to instruct thee. Rise, and follow me."
He took me by the right hand, and I flew over the plain. The river and the valley dis- appeared, and there rose before me a precipi- tous mountain, whose rocky summits seemed to touch the stars.
" That rock," said the Spirit, " is the belt which encircles the decrees of the Almighty. No mortal can attain it, without the Divine help."
I was still fixed in wonder at its prodigious height, when a light wind lifted us into the air along the rock. "We ascended a great while before we passed its bottom — a great while
THE DREAM OF MIRZA. 53
before we could attain its summit. At length, guided by the light of the stars, we reached its silver crest. Lo, spread out before us, an enchanting plain ! and I deemed myself trans- ported to the abode of the happy dead.
" It is the Plain of Destiny" said the Spirit : " regard it with attention."
A thousand streams intersected it in mazy windings, ornamented with magnificent trees and flowers of various hue. They terminated in the circular rock, and took every one its source in a central point, where a golden tem- ple rested on columns of sapphire, and emitted, like a rising sun, rays of light on all points. We walked between the rivulets ; but I could not sufficiently admire their innumerable windings ; for they interlaced each other like the threads of a tissue of silk. "We approach- ed the temple. Its gates unfolded.
" Here wilt thou recognize," said the Spirit, " that thy doubts of Providence are unjust."
He spoke thus, touched my eyes, and dis- appeared. I found myself in a vast hall of crystal, in the midst whereof there rose an
54 ORIENTAL TALES.
altar, upon which was burning a blue flame that added still more to the natural brightness of the place.
A thrill of reverence trembled through my frame ; I kneeled at the foot of the altar, and prayed. Then I heard a voice, which said to ine:
" Rise, MIRZA, and see."
I rose, and saw.
A young woman was seated under a palm- tree, and was suckling a fair-haired infant. She put her fingers through its uncombed locks, and her looks rested with fondness on its lovely visage. At length, her head drooped, she closed her eyes and slept. The infant raised its little hand, to pass it about its mother's neck ; but it touched a serpent which at that moment was gliding along the palm- tree. The reptile drew back in rage, and stung the infant, which died forthwith of the wound.
" Alas ! " I exclaimed, " what has that inno- cent mother done, that she should lose her child by so piteous a fate ? "
THE DREAM OF MIRZA. 55
Then the voice said :
" Turn thy head, and read."
I did as I was ordered, and I saw behind me a black tablet whereon were these words : ;< That mother nourished in her heart a sin ; and, by a too blind tenderness, she would have made of that child a wretch."
I turned my head in sadness ; but the picture had disappeared from the crystal, and another had assumed its place. ABDALLAH, my virtu- ous friend, was lying half-naked on wretched straw; beside him were crouched five little children. Disease and misery had paled their cheeks and dimmed the lustre of their eyes. "Weeping, they raised their meager hands towards their father, and their icy lips, me- thought, pronounced these words : " Father, give us bread."
I could not support that sight; I hid my face, and I leaned my head upon the base of the altar.
Then the voice exclaimed :
" Look once more ; and see that thou lookest well."
56- ORIENTAL TALES.
I raised my eyes, and I saw the five children of my friend richly clothed. They encircled the tomb of their father, covering it with flowers, and recalling to mind, the virtues in the practice of which he had brought them up. As they quitted the place of parental rest, a crowd of people accompanied them, congratu- lating them, and heaping on them marks of respect. At this spectacle, tears of joy ran down my cheeks. I turned my eyes to the tablet, and I read : " Wealth w^ould have ren- dered the children of ABD ALLAH proud and wicked; but the virtue of the father is thus recompensed by the prosperity of the chil- dren."
I was still rejoicing over this picture, when I remarked in the crystal THIRZAH, the daugh- ter of my deceased brother, with TARES:, her virtuous husband. They were in the hall of their mansion, portioning six poor couples ; for such was the vow they had made on the day of their nuptials, that they might make others thus partakers of their happiness. The young men and the young women departed with rich
THE DREAM OF MIRZA. 67
presents, and left them alone, happy in the good which they had done.
"Delight of my heart," said, or seemed to say, TAEIK, " how amiable thou art, and good ! Thou hast given thy finest garments, and tlmu contentest thyself, like the lily, with a simple dress."
" O TAKIK ! it is thou who art my decoration and my crown."
" Who would deck the rose ? is she not the queen of flowers ? "
" Oh ! flatter me not; I love the violet of the valley, which exhales her delicate perfume yet hideth beneath the grass."
Thus spoke their gestures, and my heart was expanding with a paternal joy, when the ceil- ing of the hall fell suddenly in, and buried them both beneath its ruins.
Then I fell down in sadness, my forehead on the ground ; I complained with a loud voice, and I bathed with my tears the base of the altar. I wept long. At length a voice cried, " MIRZA, weep no more ! "
I raised my eyes timidly to the tablet, and I
58 ORIENTAL TALES.
read : " Man, whose life is brief, sees but the present ; but the wisdom of GOD sees likewise the future. Death has snatched thy happy children from a misfortune which menaced them, and which is rising at this moment be- fore thine eyes; for the inhabitants of thy native city are committing execrable crimes."
Trembling I turned my head, and I looked upon the crystal. The old and respectable king of my country was sleeping on a sofa. By his side were twelve young boys clothed in white. These were the angels of his good works : each of them had a fan to protect his slumber. Then came forward with a slow step the king's son. His face and his hands were black, and his eyes glared like burning coals. He took his father's cup, and poured poison into it.
A deep sigh escaped my heart ; when sud- denly the picture changed. The new king set out with an army ; another came to meet him, conquered him, and laid siege to his capital. They scaled the walls ; the people were ill- used, and their houses pillaged ; the whole
THE DREAM OF MIRZA. 59
country was laid waste ; and the king was hung upon a tree.
My head fell upon my breast ; my soul was afflicted by the devastation of my country ; my eyes wandered, my senses were benumbed ; when harmonious sounds aroused me. My heart became as -light as the swallow's wing, and my ears drank in with joy various songs which resounded from all parts. I raised my eyes, and I saw in the crystal a charming plain. Old men, young people and children, were walking in verdant alleys, dancing, and gathering flowers ; birds mingled their songs with the rustling of the trees ; the sound of waters accompanied the murmur of the young men and of the maidens : all things breathed delight. THIKZAH and TARIK were seated under myrtle shades, and were weaving garlands of roses and of violets. I saw my friend ABDAL- LAH, the good old king, arid many others, who, in that fine place, forgot the evils of their earth ly life. I longed to be near them ; I stretched my arms towards them ; when the apparition disappeared, and the former voice said :
60 ORIENTAL TALES.
"It is only in the bosom of eternity that unhappy virtue finds its recompense. Go, then, MIBZA, go, and respect the decrees of Providence, even when they may appear to thee unjust."
I awoke, and found myself under the palm- tree on the banks of the Euphrates, uncertain if I had dreamed or if I had had a real appa- rition; but my heart was refreshed and my mind enlightened.1
ABDALLAH. 61
IT.
ABDALLAH.
AN old and respectable dervis,2 in one of his pious pilgrimages, passed the night at the house of a poor widow who inhabited the suburbs of Balsora. The eagerness with which the poor woman received him completely gained his affection. He wished to recom- pense her for her friendship, and, as he was about to leave, he said to her :
" I see, my dear sister, that you are poor ; it will be difficult for you to amass, by your labor, as much as will be needed for the educa- tion of your son ABDALLAH. If you will con- fide to me the boy, I will bring him up."
The widow, who for some years had known the dervis for a holy man, consented to this proposal with joy, and delivered her son into his charge.
62 ORIENTAL TALES.
For three years they traversed the finest countries and the most populous towns of Asia. The dervis regarded ABDALLAH as his own son ; he taught him divers useful things, and his pupil having fallen grievously sick, attend- ed him with all a father's solicitude. ABDAL- LAH, on every occasion, spoke of his sentiments of gratitude. But the dervis was wont to answer, that true gratitude consisted not in words but in actions, and that in time and place he would find an occasion of proving his sincerity.
One day, in their travels, they entered a desert country.
" My son," said the dervis, " now thou canst testify thy love. In this rock is hidden a precious treasure, which will be ours, if thou wilt obey my directions."
ABDALLAH assured him that he was ready to expose his life for his benefactor.
On this assurance, the dervis struck the rock with his staff. The rock opened.
"Enter, my son," said the dervis. "At a certain depth, thou wilt find an iron candle-
ABDALLAH. 63
stick with twelve brandies. Take it : but oe careful how thou touchest the other riches that thou wilt there discover. Fay strict attention to what I tell thee : take nothing but the can- dlestick; for the rest is not destined for us. Think, my son, that thou wilt never, perhaps, have another occasion of testifying thy obedi- ence and thy affection."
ABDALLAH promised all, and descended cour- ageously ; but as soon as he saw the riches which were beside the candlestick, his eyes were dazzled. He forgot the dervis's recom- mendation, and filled his pockets with the gold and diamonds with which the cavern was strewed: but, at that very instant, the rock closed. The obscurity which surrounded the young man frightened him ; he hastily seized the candlestick, and groped to find an outlet of escape from this tomb. After long searching, he perceived a feeble light : he followed it, and soon issued from the cavern. He turned his head on every side ; but the dervis had disap- peared, and to his astonishment he found him- self close to Balsora, where dwelt his mother.
64 ORIENTAL TALES.
" Be the dervis where he may," thought he, "I am rich enough now to do without him.''
On his arrival, his mother immediately made inquiries about the holy man. ABDALLAJI related his adventure, and finished by declar- ing that he had no longer need of the old man, and that he would henceforward, himself, provide for his own existence. He resolved to put his treasures out at interest, and con- ceived different projects for the best employ- ment of his fortune. His mother was equally dazzled by the splendor of so many precious objects, and regarded them, without thinking of the holy man, as a possession which her son had gained by his courage and address. They were both contented, and were counting the gold pieces and the diamonds, when sud- denly all disappeared, except the candlestick.
" Alas ! " said the mother, weeping, " we have irritated the holy dervis. He has only wished to try us, to know if we were grateful ; but as we have forgotten him, he has with- drawn from us his precious gifts. Carry him
ABDALLAH 65
the candlestick, my sou ; perhaps thou wilt succeed in appeasing his anger."
ABDALLAH, who had not the timid piety of his mother, sat himself down in a corner, and cursed the old man and his iron candlestick.
" A fine thing, truly, he has left us here ! " said he. "I expose my life to satisfy his caprices, and he gets angry, and takes what does not belong to him, — what I have acquired by dint of exertion ! My mother may say what she pleases ; -the man is more of a magi- cian than a saint."
However, night approached. The mother lighted a small lamp, and set it on the table. ABDALLAH wished to place it more convenient- ly, and fastened it to one of the branches of the great iron candlestick. All of a sudden there appeared a dervis, enveloped in a long brown dress. For a quarter of an hour, he turned on his heel like a top,8 threw an asper* on the table, and disappeared. ABDALLAH laughed at this apparition, and essayed th^
* A small Turkish coin, worth about a cent and a small fraction. — TRANSL.
66 ORIENTAL TALES.
next evening the same thing for the twelve branches of the candlestick. He put a wick in each one, and lighted it. Twelve dervises, clothed in brown, appeared, turned about for a quarter of an hour, and disappeared, after having thrown each an asper on the table. They returned at each new essay, but never more than once an evening. — This daily re- ceipt sufficed for the moderate subsistence of the mother and her son. But the brief pos- session of the lost riches had excited an ardent longing in their hearts. With his twelve aspers^AjBDATj.AH could not execute a single one of his numerous projects. He began then to reflect, if it were not better to carry that old rusty candlestick to the dervis, who, with- out doubt, would at least restore him the ob- jects that had disappeared, as he must make more account of this candlestick than of all the riches enclosed in the rock. As his mother approved of this resolution, he set out on the morrow with his candlestick. He had heard that the dervis was called ABUNADAR, and that he dwelt in the citv of Majniebi. Thanks to the
ABDALLAH. 67
money daily furnished him by the candlestick, he could easily travel to find the dervis.
When he arrived at Maguebi, he inquired for the abode of the pious ABTTNADAR. This man was so well known by all the city, that the very children could show him the house wherein he dwelt. Porters waited at the en- trance ; the court swarmed with slaves and domestics; and the house itself resembled more the palace of a prince than the habi- tation of a dervis. ABDALLAH durst not ap- proach.
"Either the people have misunderstood me," said he, " or they have mocked me be- cause'I am a stranger."
He was about to turn back, when a slave approached him, saying :
" Welcome, ABDALLAH ; my master has beer long expecting thee; I will conduct thee to him directly."
He led him into a magnificent hall, where the dervis, clothed as usual in his brown dress, was seated on a sofa. ABDALLAH, dazzled by the marks of opulence which he saw on all
68 ORIENTAL TALES.
Bides, prostrated himself before the dervis, and set the candlestick at his feet.
" Thou wouldst deceive me, my son," said ABUNADAR ; " I read it in thy heart : it is neither love nor gratitude that brings thee hither ; but thou thinkest to gain me with that gift. I am sure that thou wouldst not have brought me the candlestick, hadst thou known its power. I will show thee what advantage one may derive from it."
He attached to each of the twelve branches a wax candle, and lighted it. The twelve dervises appeared as before. After they had turned for some time, ABUNADAR took a stick, and gave each of them a vigorous blow.- The twelve all stopped, and transformed themselves into as many great heaps of sequins, of dia- monds, emeralds, and other precious stones.
"See," said the dervis to ABDALLAH ; u sucli is the advantage which one who knows can draw from this candlestick, although it is not with that view that I have sought it. It is the work of a sage whose memory I respect ; and as I attach a great deal of value to the collect-
ABDALLAH. 69
ing of such masterpieces, I desired to possess this, as being one of the most curious. Thy own eyes, however, may convince thee of the truth of what I say. Here are the keys of my treasury ; go contemplate my riches, and re- turn and tell me if they be not sufficient for a mortal, however avaricious."
ABDALLAH obeyed. Six great vats, which touched one another, were filled to the brim with riches so rare and in so vast quantity, that he knew not to which at first to yield his admiration.
" Fool that I was," he said, " why did I part with that candlestick? Soon or late, chance would have revealed to me its use ; now I must regard from a distance the wealth of an- other, whereas I might be as rich as this der- vis, had I been less imbecile."
He returned. ABUNADAR read his thoughts in his forehead ; but he feigned to not perceive them. He received him with kindness, kept . him many days near him, and regaled him as his friend. When the seventh day was near to its close, he called him to his side, and said :
70 ORIENTAL TALES.
" The half of the treasures which thou hast seen in my house, I inherited from my father ; the rest I heaped together myself, not because 1 was avaricious, but because I have never employed for my subsistence but the tenth part of my revenues. As I had already felt, in my youth, that a great fortune renders men neither better nor happier, but that there is madness in dispersing what one has heaped together, I pretended to be poor. I dressed myself in the costume of a dervis ; I traveled during many years, compelling myself to be- come more wise by the contemplation of human follies. Thrice, on foot, I went in pil- grimage to Mecca, and I lived as the poorest pilgrim. To the needy I distributed only the most rigorous alms, believing that labor ren- ders man more happy than idleness. Years have glided away insensibly, and the hour is approaching, nearer and nearer, when I must leave the world as empty as I entered it. I have no children, and I wished to bequeath my patrimony to an heir that would adminis- ter it with wisdom and with moderation. I
ABDALLAH. 71
am sorry that thou hast destroyed my hopes by thine ingratitude. However, I trust that my frankness, and what thou hast experienced up to this moment, will cure thee of that, shameful vice. I will detain thee no longer ; thou mayest depart. In token of my gratitude for the long journey thou hast made on account of the candlestick, thou wilt find to-morrow before my house the handsomest of my horses ; it will belong to thee, as well as the slave who leads it. I give thee besides two camels, which thou mayst load, thyself, with as much gold arid as many jewels from my treasury as thou shalt choose."
ABDALLAH thanked him for these rich pres- ents, and went to bed, impatient to see the dawn of the morrow.
He could not sleep all night; and he thought of nothing but the marvellous candle- stick.
" But for me," said he, " ABUNADAE would not have received it. I seek for it, at the hazard of my life, in a rock ; having it in my possession, I make a painful journey, I carry
72 ORIENTAL TALES.
my conquest humbly, and in exchange for it I get only two old camels loaded with a little gold and with precious stones ! It is ABUN A- DAR that is ungrateful, and not I; the candle- stick furnishes in a single moment more than six camels can carry. Why not resume what belongs to me, since my complaisance is so badly recompensed ? "
Thus spoke ABDALLAH, and resolved to pur- loin the candlestick ; which he could do with so much the more facility, that ABUNADAR had entrusted him with the keys of his treasury. He took the candlestick, and stowed it in one of the sacks which he filled with gold and with precious stones. He restored the keys to the generous ABUNADAR, made his adieus, and departed with the horse, the slave, and the two loaded camels.
"When he was yet two days distant from Balsora, he sold the slave, and purchased an- other, that nobody might learn the source of his riches. On his arrival, his mother came to meet him with eager joy ; but he was so occu- pied with unloading his treasures, that he
ABDALLAH. 73
made only short answers to her questions. His first care was to carry the candlestick to a retired chamber ; for he burned with impa- tience to see the transformation of the dervises. He lighted twelve wax-candles, and attach- ed them to the candlestick. The twelve der- vises appeared, and executed their movement. He had prepared a stick, and, as he thought that the charm consisted in the force of the blow, he applied a vigorous one to each of the dervises. Unluckily for him, he had not no- ticed that ABUNADAR, when he struck, held the stick in his left hand ; he had taken it, accord- ing to custom, in his right hand. Therefore the dervises did not transform themselves into heaps of gold and precious stones, but they drew from under their long brown robes each a knotted cudgel, and basted the ungrateful and perfidious ABDALLAH to such a degree, that he fell upon the ground half-dead. They then disappeared, and carried away with them the sacks, the camels, the horse, the slave, and the candlestick.
T4 ORIENTAL TALES.
T.
THE THKEE SONS.
TOGKTAMISCH, a rich Tartar, who had three sons by his sole wife TURKAN-KATAN, consigned to the Cadi,* on the eve of his death, a sealed will, in which he declared to be the heir of all his property whoever of his children should prove best that he was son of TOGKTAMISCH. The three brothers presented themselves before the Cadi with their documents. They appeared all three to have the same right to the inheri- tance ; for they invoked all three the testimony of their mother, who was still living. The Cadi knew not on what to resolve in this perplexed affair, and he proposed to leave it to the judg- ment of the Sultan TOGKTTL. The latter was about to set out for the chase ; he therefore
* Provincial judge. — TRANSL.
THE YOUNGEST SOX REFUSES TO SHOOT.
THE THREE SONS. 75
ordered the disputants to bring without delay their father's mummy. He caused it to be set up at a certain distance, and then presented his bow to the eldest son, saying :
" He among you who shall, with this arrow, hit exactly the heart of the deceased, shall be recognized as son and heir of TOGKTAMISCH ; for it is impossible to remove the difficulty in any other manner."
The eldest son took aim, and his arrow struck the breast of his father. The second took the bow and succeeded as well as the first. Then the youngest bent the bow ; but, at the moment of taking aim, he let it fall from his hands, began to weep, threw himself at the Sultan's feet, and said :
" My lord, do not be angry if thy slave re- fuses to obey thy orders. I remember at this moment the numerous benefits I have received from my father. He loved me so tenderly, he showed me so much kindness ; he treated me always with as much affection as if I had been his only son ! How can I be so ungrateful as to wound him after his death ? I would rather
76 ORIENTAL TALES.
renounce my share of the inheritance than gain it in such a manner."
The Sultan raised him, kissed him on the forehead, and said :
" Thou hast best proved that thou. art the son of the excellent TOGKTAMISCH: therefore thou shalt be his only heir. But let the two eldest be sold as slaves; for they have proved by their ingratitude that they are not the true sons of a noble father."4
THE JOURNEY TO BABYLON. 77
VI.
THE JOUENEY TO BABYLON.
SCARCELY had the first rays of light appeared when I mounted ray ass, and took the path which leads to the great road to Babylon.
" Oh ! with what pleasure," I exclaimed in- ternally, "with wnat transport do I behold these new hills ! What a quantity of flowers in these meadows ! What delicious perfumes they exhale upon the air! My route is bor- dered by an avenue of trees, in the shade of which I can repose with my ass whenever it suits me. How serene the heavens ! how beau- tiful the day ! how pure the air which I am breathing ! ~No business hastens me ; with my good beast I shall still arrive before night at Babylon."
Thus I spoke, intoxicated with joy. I re- garded my ass with pleasure ; I caressed him
73 ORIENTAL TALES.
with my hand ; when suddenly I heard a noise behind me, and, turning my head, 1 saw ap- proaching on fine camels a troop of men and women. They looked about them with a grave and disdainful air. All were dressed in long robes of purple, adorned with girdles of gold and diamonds. In a little time their camels had come up with me ; and, nearer seen, their splendor dazzled me still 'more. How little 1 was, meseemed, upon my ass !
In vain I drew myself up ; I was not taller for it. Scarcely did my head reach the soles of their shoes ! My pride was wounded : yet I wished to follow them.
I urged my ass impatiently: I could have wished that he would grow all of a sudden to the height of the tallest camel, and that his two long ears would become still longer. I beat him, I pricked him ; in truth, he ran as fast as he could ; but six of his steps would not equal one of a camel's. I lost sight of the train, and I renounced at once the Lope of reach- ing it.
" What a difference," I exclaimed mentally,
THE JOUKNEY TO BABYLON. T9
" between their fate and mine ! Why are they not in my place ? Why am I not in theirs ? I, unhappy, I travel alone on the worst and the meanest of animals; they,, on the contrary, advance proudly at a gallop, and are even ashamed to see me in their rear."
During these reflections, I relaxed my bridle. My ass soon perceived that I no longer directed him. He walked more and more slowly. At length he quitted the route : the meadow at- tracted him ; he stopped, stooped his head and ate. The luxuriant grass suited his taste; it appeared even to invite him to repose. He lay down, and I fell. I fell to awake from my revery, full of rage against my companion; when a new noise, of a thousand voices, struck my ears. I opened my eyes, and perceived a troop still more numerous than the first. Their beasts of burden were as modest as my own ; their long linen robes put no shame on mine ; they talked together familiarly ; and I was em- boldened to address one of them.
" Whatever haste you make," I said to him, " you will not reach, mounted as you are, those
80 ORIENTAL TALES.
who have got so far ahead of you on their proud camels."
" "We shall take good care not to," answered he. " Those madmen expose their lives ; and for what? to arrive some minutes before us! An hour sooner or later, what imports it ? in a robe of purple or of linen, on an ass or on a camel, what is all that, so one arrives ? and what is it even during the journey, provided one knows how to amuse himself? You, for example — what would have become of you, if, thrown as you have been, you had had a camel ? "
I was ashamed and answered nothing ; but I turned my head to look at the great mass of the crowd behind us. To my astonishment, men, women and children, all were following us on foot, and their backs besides were loaded with burdens. Nevertheless some were singing, others were romping on the grass.
"We are all going to Babylon!" they gaily cried. And the children repeated what the old had said.
"They are all going to Babylon," I said; " and they are joyful under their burdens ; and
THE JOURNEY TO BABYLON. 81
I — shall I be afflicted ! " I remounted proudly my beast, and paced by the side of my con- soler. We chatted together, and methought an enormous weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
In this manner we continued our route, and before our arrival we encountered, to our great surprise, the greater part of the first travelers in a very evil plight. Their camels had thrown them; their long purple robes, their girdles bedecked with gold and diamonds, were covered with mud.
LTien, ye great ones of the earth! then I learned to know the littleness of human gran- deur, and, if I became not completely indiffer- ent to the inequality of human conditions, at least it was enough to console me.
"We all arrive at Babylon," I exclaimed; " and he who journeys on foot arrives there sometimes with more pleasure and happiness than the lofty horseman. Nevertheless it is agreeable to travel in good society, and to be mounted on a sure beast, and to have a little provision until one reaches the nearest inn."
ORIENTAL' TALES.
vn. EL EAKHAM;
OB, THE MARRIAGE-COLLAR. (BY THE TRANSLATOR.)
IN those far-off days ere magic was extinct, indeed when most it flourished, there lived in the East a powerful enchanter, whose true and reverential name was ABOULHASSAN, but who, whether from his often assuming the form of a gigantic vulture, or from certain of his practices that were not very beneficent or unselfish, was more commonly called El Hakham. Give human beings irresponsible power, and they are almost certain to abuse it. ABOULHASSAN was not immortal, and he could make obey him those who were so ; therefore, like with other enchanters, there was more in him of evil than there was of good.
He lived, when at home, in a castle whose dimensions, though enormous, were very easily
EL RAKHAM. 83
measurable by those who cared nothing about them ; but, when any one approached it with unfriendly or with inquisitive purpose, the owner raised about it a mist, or sunk its drawbridge, filled up its moat, and obliterated its gates, or otherwise tripled and quadrupled the obstructions to its entrance, just as. suited him. Sometimes the walls were gloomy as the dungeons of Jehennum;* at other times they glowed and dazzled almost like the sun at noon-day. Now they seemed of solid hell- stone ;f then they looked to be of burnished gold, or silver, or steel. It short, no one could see it rightly, far less enter it, save at the En- chanter's pleasure. Among other contrivances, he had certain mirrors which reflected every object he wished to see, and, it is said, gave- him insight at all hours into the interior of every household, — a faculty which, if he were a reasonable being, must have given EL HASSAN more disgust than pleasure, but, if he were the vulture he was called, must have often swelled his gorge with satisfaction.
* Hell. f Basalt.
84 ORIENTAL TALES.
Now there lived, in sight of EL HASSAN'S castle, two young ladies of high family, the eldest of whom was named HABBEMAH and the younger NEFESA. Both were perfect moons of beauty, and the younger, who was change- ful as that planet, and as- unreliable, was more- over excessively vain, and in her vanity su- premely selfish.
All this the Enchanter saw, and, captivated equally by both the sisters, he would willingly have married both ; but he saw not less, that with the elder, who was discreet and modest, all wooing on his part would be vain, while even with the younger he should be obliged to use artifice. Such is the disadvantage of a bad character.
One day, NEFESA was seated in her bower. The vine hung down its purple but yet un- ripened grapes ; climbing plants intermixed their slender and curving branches with the arms of the vine-stock, whose wreathed tendrils held them married to it, and red and yellow flowers gave out their perfume to the air. Birds sat singing in the neighboring trees,
EL KAKHAM. 85
where the dark-skinned fig, the golden apple, and the blushing peach displayed their modest worth with the showier treasures of the orange and the lemon. The murmur and plash of a neighboring fountain, and the ripple of a dis- tant rivulet, came soothingly on the ear in the pauses of the birds' loud song; and the soft air, scented with the sweets of flowers and fruits over which it had passed, breathed de- liciously at intervals through the openings of the bower, and added to the sense of volup- tuous happiness which the time inspired.
The lady NEFESA, with all her levity, was not proof against this seductive physical influ- ence. She sat, with her cheek leaning on her hand, thinking on I know not what, but some- thing at once both sweet and sad, for her looks were at the same time tender and pensive, when suddenly there was a violent rustling in the vine-clad treillage, and looking up she saw a dove, which, chased to the very entrance of the bower by a hawk, flew in trepidation to her lap. NEFESA, in the mood to be pleased with everything, caressed the fluttering bird.
86 ORIENTAL TALES.
which seemed to be sensible of her favor, for it sought not to escape, but, when the lady pressed it to her bosom and smoothed down the plumage of its head, lay thus perfectly contented, and, when finally she kissed it on the head, put up its bill to her lips, and ap- peared so anxious for the kiss, that the lady blushed as well as laughed, as, striking it play- fully, she called it "Wanton!" and protested, " Now, by Allah, I believe thou art a man !" Presently, however, she returned its kiss ; and immediately her mirth was changed to terror ; for, behold, the feathers of the bird were elon- gated to a wondrous degree, and with them its body, head, and legs; and when NEFESA, screaming out, thrust the creature from her, which kept expanding all the while in size and length, it caught her by the girdle and a portion of her tunic with its now monstrous beak, twined its strong legs, with their scaly and horny talons, about her limbs, and in an instant bore her from the bower, while all the while it continued to grow larger, till, when it mounted in the air with its now senseless
EL RAKHAM. 87
prey, it was, though in shape a vulture, yet larger than an ordinary man.
When NEFESA recovered from ner swoon, she found herself in a sumptuously decorated and furnished chamber, reclining on the velvet cushions of a divan, while beside her, kneel- ing on one knee, was the enchanter ABOUL- HASSAN.
He was not an ugly man, and he had newly dyed his beard for the occasion, and with some magical cosmetic restored to his cheeks the smoothness and the bloom of early manhood. But this was not the moment to consider these recommendations, and NEFESA, indignant at once and frightened, sprang up and made for the door of the apartment. EL HASSAN inter- cepted her way, but with gentleness, and said :
"In vain, charming NEFESA, thou triest to escape. There are a hundred doors which thou must pass before thou canst reach the gate of my castle ; and what then will carry thee over the moat, for the drawbridge is up ?"
" Who art thou ?" said NEFESA, pausing, but in despair, and shrinking from him.
88 ORIENTAL TALES.
" Thy most passionate adorer !" answered her captor. "If I have resorted to this means to secure thee, blame only thy beauty, which has left me without reason; and have compassion for my demerits, the consciousness of which would not suffer me to become thy wooer." And again he knelt before her, and, crossing his hands upon his breast, bowed down his head, and appeared humbly to await his sen- tence.
NEFESA was nattered ; ABOULHASSAN need- ed not his mirrors, nor any other magical con- trivance, to see, behind the cloud of displeas- ure which still darkened that fair visage, the sun of contentment which was yet to shine forth for him.
"But what art thou called, O man?" she asked, in a tone somewhat softened.
" ABOU 'L HASSAN, slave of the beautiful NE-
FESA."
"El Rakham?" exclaimed the captive, en- treating still further, and with greater terror than at first.
" — Who bore thee here with beak and
EL RAKHAM. 89
talons, adored lady," replied tlie Enchanter with a smile. "But before I was a vulture, remember I was a dove, and that beautiful hand has caressed me, and pressed me to th j heart. Be not indignant," he continued, rising, and approaching her, while still she retreated : " thou art my enchantress, and the vulture, in thy hands, shall be ever the trembling and affectionate dove, stooping timidly to thy ca- resses and obedient to thy lightest call. "What dost thou order me?"
" Release me on the instant."
"And take thee home? That would be scarcely prudent until I have taught thee to look upon me with something like endurance. No, beautiful NEFESA ; thou shalt abide with me one week. Do not look terrified. Here, take this dagger. If during that time thou shalt find offence in ABOULHASSAN, strike me with it to the heart. And if, at the end of that time, thou wilt not consent to take me as a husband, I care not if thou do the same for me; for life will then be no more worth my having."
90 ORIENTAL TALES.
Thus spake the crafty magician, not telling her that he could not be wounded mortally, saving in one spot of all his body, and that was well protected. The simple maiden, flat- tered, yet still afraid, was half-tempted to re- fuse the weapon ; but reading her thoughts, and smiling, EL HASSAN left it in her hands, and, retreating a few steps, said : " No, keep it. It is at least a guaranty that thou art mistress here, and ABOTJLHASSAN is but the first of thy slaves." He clapped his hands. A throng of maidens, beautiful as stars, but none so beau- tiful as NEFESA, who shone among them like a crescent moon, appeared on the instant. " These," continued the Enchanter, " are among thy servants. In their midst thou wilt be as safe as in thy mother's chamber. When thou wilt permit me to kiss the ground at thy feet, I will come ; but command me to retire, and I shall obey as becomes me, nor murmur, though heart-stricken." So saying, he bowed with the same feigned humility as before, and when he lifted his eyes he looked so handsome
KL RAKHAM. 91
that NEFESA fairly blushed ; and the Enchanter retired, sure of his victory.
In fact, he never desired to be permitted to visit her but that he was admitted; not two days had elapsed before NEFESA herself longed for the hour of his coming ; and now exhibit- ing one treasure, then another to her dazzled eyes, but every day something new, whose value proved his inexhaustible riches, and whose beauty tempted her luxurious tastes and love of ornament, while all the time he was gentle, reverent and devoted, ABOULHASSAN, before the seven days had expired, was as much the master of her heart as, in her co- quettish and inconstant nature, any single lover ever could be. When, therefore, at the close of that term, he stood before her, and, baring his breast, bade her end his misery or accept him as her lord, NEFESA, taking the jeweled dagger from her girdle and returning it to him, bowed herself before him in her turn, blushing to the roots of her hair; and the Enchanter, clasping her in his arms, declared himself the happiest of men, and vowed to
92 ORIENTAL TALES.
make her in requital the happiest of happy women.
NRFESA'S relations however were not so easi- ly satisfied. Her mother indeed, after many tears, and much animated expostulation, soft- ened gradually, as were displayed, one after another, all the priceless wonders of the castle, and the Enchanter himself with bewitching deference loaded her writh presents of inesti- mable value ; and she finally declared that ABOFLHASSAN was a very much traduced per- son, and that, if all the vultures in the world were of his feather, it were but justice to let them pounce on all the pretty doves they chose; but her sister, the prudent HABBEMAH, was inconsolable. Almost swooning, and grov- eling on the ground at her feet, she implored her not to be deluded by EL RAKHAM'S feigned humility, and said every wise thing she could think of on the insignificance which his wealth must one day have in her eyes when her peace of mind was gone forever, and her joys were turned to lamentation. Nor did she desist until NEFESA told her sharply, she was envious of
ABOULHASSAX PREFERS 1118 Si: IT IX PRESENCE OF THE MOTHER.
EL RAKHAM. 93
her better fortune. There was a third person who came not near NEFESA, but who had en- tered largely as an argument into HABBEMAH'S remonstrances. This was her uncle's son, who had calculated on NEFESA as his own, and was almost beside himself with rage and disappoint- ment.
The nuptials were celebrated at the castle. Before the signing of the contract, NEFKSA had obtained one condition in her favor, and that was the privilege of visiting her own family once a week. At the close of the usual cere- mony, the Enchanter brought forward a circle exquisitely wrought of fine gold in the form of chain-work. This, with some muttered charm, he put over his own and his wife's head, as they stood together. The ring en- larged as it descended until it reached their necks, when, becoming smaller again, and somewhat elliptical, it embraced them both. " It is but a token," said the husband, smiling encouragingly as NEFESA looked alarmed ; u it is but a token that we are henceforth one. Our lives will terminate together : the same minute
94 ORIENTAL TALES.
that sees me expire will be too to thee the last." Stretching the collar easily with his fingers, he drew his head from under it, when imme- diately it contracted about the neck of his wife, fitting it as if it were a necklace made for the purpose. NEFESA smiled again, when, glancing at a large mirror, she saw how it be- came her, and felt how light and flexible it was, as if it were a network of silk and not of solid gold. But her satisfaction vanished when, that night, she found it was irremov- able, and her husband told her it would be ever on her, even in death. And the next day, when on going to the bath she sought to re- move it, and found that her efforts only made it tighter, till she was on the point of strangu- lation, she became really dissatisfied and for the time alarmed. But her husband, who was yet a novelty and able to please her, laughed away her terrors, declared that the necklace was more essential to her union with him than was the Cadi's contract, and that even his own art could not now reverse the charm, and make it removable. And, in a few days NEFE-
EL RAKHAM. 95
SA lost, in the habit of wearing it, almost the consciousness that it was there, and forgot even the purport of the charm, which he had assured her rendered their lives forever one, with the same predestined moment of termination.
All went well for a little while. But soon NEFESA grew tired of the monotony of her confinement, and when she showed herself dissatisfied, the vulture's feathers appeared amid the plumage of the dove, and the obse- quious and flattering lover became at last the imperious and threatening tyrant.
NEFESA now acknowledged the soundness of her sister's counsel, and, bewailing more and more her fate, applied at last for conso- lation to her uncle's son, who easily persuaded her, that as ABOULHASSAN had beguiled her by his arts she owed him no fidelity, and that he was a foul magician whom it were a benefit to humanity to put out of the world. Un- mindful, if she had reason enough to think, that no one wrong can ever justify another, and feeling assured that her cousin would espouse
96 ORIENTAL TALES.
her could she once be widowed, NEFESA, — now worse than weak, — promised wickedly to contrive occasion for her cousin to slay her husband. Though with little heart, she had nothing ferocious or cruel in her nature, and she could not attempt this crime herself, even if she had had the courage ; and for her cousin to enter the castle was next to impossible, and, if possible, would have been to the last degree perilous. The young man however was valiant and well-used to arms, and having after many months' travel and wearisome effort obtained a talisman which rendered him proof against enchantment, he appeared one day be- fore the castle and boldly defied its master to mortal combat.
The Enchanter was not slow to respond. He appeared on a beautiful barb, armed with spear and scimitar, as the challenger himself was armed ; and the combat commenced with- in view of the castle. But if ABOULHASSAN was more powerful, his assailant was younger, singularly active, and perfectly master of his horse. "Wheeling around and around his an-
EL RAKHAM. 97
tagonist, lie assailed liim at all points almost in the same moment, while the Enchanter, at last resorting to his magic, found it impos- sible to dazzle or bewilder him, or palsy his arm, or transform him into some inferior an- imal. Finally, by a successful sweep of his scimitar, the challenger cut the Enchanter's head clean from his body. But, behold, not a drop of blood started from the severed ar- teries ; and when, springing from his steed, the victor sought to grasp the head, the tur- ban alone remained in his hand as trophy of his victory, while the body, which fallen from the saddle had groped its way to the dissevered head, had become joined with it again, and the next minute body and head, spear and sword, and horse, everything had disappeared but the turban in the hand of the victor, who stared about him in amaze- ment, and finally, hurling the empty turban over the walls of the castle,— in which act the missile seemed to be propelled by the wind or by magic, for by its own lightness it must other wise have fallen short and dropped into the
98
ORIENTAL TALES.
moat, — rode off, shaking his spear in a transport of rage and despair. But, as he rode, a bolt, shot from a crossbow in the castle, smote him in the back and laid him dead up- on the plain.
Soon after, an enormous vulture
HHFESA AWAITING IX ANXIETY THE ISSUE Of THK COMBAT.
EL RAKHAM. 99
was seen flying toward the spot where the horseman had fallen. It was El Rakham, in search of the talisman. But he was too late. The combat had been seen from the top of the house where lived the family of NEFESA, and the dead man had been instantly borne away upon his own steed.
NEFESA too was aware of the fall of her cousin, having had the combat watched by one of her maids, and wiien the Enchanter, the fatal crossbow in his hand, entered the harem, she was in a swoon, in the arms of her slave-girls. Grimly smiling, he left her thus. And when he returned, disappointed, from his quest of the talisman, and found her in tears, with a still grimmer smile El Rakham said:
" Are those tears and was thy swoon for me or for thy cousin?"
" I needs must weep for my uncle's son ; but 1 was in tears for thy safety, O my lord, and fainted."
Crime is followed, as it is usually preceded, by a long train of falsehoods, and KEFESA,
100
ORIENTAL TALES.
who has plotted against the life of her hus- band, has now fully entered on that course of duplicity, dissimulation, and downright lying, which she thinks will veil her treachery.
ABO0LHA89AN BEPBOAOUES AX1J THREATENS NEFESA.
EL HASSAX smiled in the same grim man- ner, and if the vulture did not glare from the
EL RAKHAM. 101
eyes which looked down upon and into her soul, as it were through the lowered and con- tracted brows, it was something quite as dis- agreeable.
"Thou didst well," he said, "to feel that terror; for, as I have told thee, on my life depends thy own. Didst thou feel comfort- able when my head flew from my body?"
" Oh, my master ! I thought I should have choked with grief."
" With death, thou meanest. It is thy warn- ing. Remember the fate of ABOTJ LAHAB, and beware, thou lying woman, how thou diggest a pit into which thou mayst, and shalt verily, fall thyself."*
He left the harem, and from that moment no more alluded to the subject.
Soon NEFESA'S remaining cousin became im- patient to avenge the death of his brother ; and NEFESA, now cordially detesting her husband, was again persuaded to assent and give aid to a plan for his destruction. El Rakham's
* ABOU LAHAB was hurled by mistake into the pit which he had prepared for his uncle, the Prophet.
102 ORIENTAL TALES.
warnings were not indeed forgotten; but NE- FKSA did not believe in them; her mother thought them but menaces; and her cousin declared it impossible even for magic to make her life so dependent upon his that his death should be the signal of her own. The prudent HABBEMAH alone essayed her utmost to dis- suade her, and, being virtuous as well as pru- dent, pronounced it criminal to plot against even a tyrannical husband, and to seek to pun- ish by death the craft of which her own frivol- ity had rendered her the victim.
Weeks flew by and became months; and months were numbered slowly, one after an- other, in seeming inaction ; but NEFESA was all the while intent upon her scheme. Every day she became more tenderly submissive, more winningly affectionate in her ways ; her whole study seemed to be to obliterate from her husband's mind his suspicions and to re- awaken in its former warmth his attachment. And, before a twelvemonth had expired, El Rakham ceased to manifest distrust, and was become, for an enchanter, a very good sort of
EL RAKHAM. 103
husband : and the volatile NEFESA might have abandoned her design, had not her cousin, who still burned to avenge what he considered the treacherous death of his brother, continu- ally egged her on.
One day, when she was looking more beau- tiful than ever, and exerted all her arts of en- dearment with success, NEFESA plied her happy lord so well with the juice that is accursed of the Prophet, that he forgot his reason. Then the enchantress in beauty, half closing her long dark eyes, as if to see the better, looked closely on the neck of the enchanter in magic art, and, moving her head all around until she had examined it on every side, seemed to search for something. When this was done, she pushed El Rakham from her, and, throw- ing back her head, laughed aloud, clapping the while her pretty hands together till their palms were deeper dyed and more becomingly than the henna-stained nails.
" O thou deceiver !" she said at last, to ABOULHASSAN'S question of surprise. "Thou madest me think that dear head was cut off.
104 ORIENTAL TALES.
Where is the mark? where is the scar? There is not a line so wide as is the finest hair in all my head !"
"Didst thou not see it fall?" said ABOTJL- HASSAN.
"Yes, bnt no blood flowed; and I now see it on again, without a mark of any cut. It was all magic! all illusion! Thou didst it to frighten me, and to deceive my uncle's son."
"The curse of AD and THAMOUD on thy uncle's son !" cried El Rakham, now impatient- ly. " I swear by ALLAH and the Kaaba, (thou believest in that superstition,) that this head was off ; and if no blood flowed, it was because no blood will ever flow from my body, till it is pierced in one part ; and that, thou mayst be sure, I take good care to guard."
NEFESA said no more upon the subject, but hugged him, kissed him, soothed him, and plied him with wine until he fell asleep.
Then the cunning woman passed her hand gently over all his body, until she felt, over the spine, in the region of the loins, a thick-
EL RAKHAM. 105
ness of envelope, as of a padded bandage, the centre of which gave to the fingers a sensation of contact with something very hard under a surface soft and compressible, as might be a steel plate imbedded in many thicknesses of soft leather. Immediately she awoke him. " I have found it! I have found it!" she cried. "Here is the part thou guardest."
In an instant he had sprung to his feet, and, drawing his scimitar, seized her by the hair. "Wouldst thou betray me, thou vile one?" he exclaimed fiercely. "Beware! it is thy own death."
NEFESA would have implored, but she could not. His hand, in the next instant, had aban- doned her hair to clutch the magic collar, and his large fingers, inserted between her throat and the closely-fitting circle, almost stopped her breath. She put up her hands in fear and pain, and her straining eyes, at once im- ploring, tearful, and terrified in their expres- sion, spoke both physical and moral an- guish.
The torturer relaxed the pressure, but still
106
ORIENTAL TALES.
ABOTTLHA8SAN SEIZES 1118 TKEACHEEOCS \VIFF BY THE HADs.
held with the tip of his forefinger to the collar and NEFESA spoke:
"What have 1 done, O my master? Is it so criminal to be inquisitive?"
"And is that all?" growled El Eakham, still distrustful. But he released the collar.
"What else could it be?" replied NEFESA,
EL RAKHAM. 101
weeping. *•' Does my master know our sex so little? Or, If I could be so wicked and un- grateful as to plot against thy life, would I throw away my own?"
" Very true," murmured EL HASSAN, relent- ing as he watched the tears coursing singly from the beautiful eyes of NEFESA.
" Oh, thou hast no heart !" resumed the wife, pursuing her advantage: "thou didst never love me !" And she pouted and sobbed, and sobbed and pouted, till he fairly kissed the tear-drops from her cheek.
A week after that, JSTEFESA paid a visit to her home. Had ABOULHASSAN used his mir- rors, he might have seen her in consultation with her cousin, while her sister stood by them in the attitude and with the gesture of a vain but earnest expostulation. But the Enchanter was no longer distrustful, or relied too much upon the terror of his threats.
A day or two after the visit, one morning early, a small red rag might have been seen hanging from the lattice of an upper window in the castle. It was so small, that ABOUL-
108 ORIENTAL TALES
HASSAN himself would scarcely have noticed it, or would have thought its hanging there an accident, yet it was distinctly visible to the eyes which anxiously watched for it in NEFE- SA'S mother's home ; and presently her cousin, mounted on the very barb which had borne his unfortunate brother, and armed with lance and scimitar and a bow and arrows, was making eagerly his way to a neighboring covert.
Soon after, a vulture of extraordinary size soared from the roof of one of the towers of tho castle, and flew towards a river beyond where the horseman was hidden. Then the latter issued from his covert, and, urging onward his steed, shouted. The vulture hung on his mighty wings, and seemed to regard the man, as if he suspected an assailant. Instantly the horse, reined in, stood still as if a statue of bronze, and the rider, bending his bow, sent an arrow which hit the broad pinion of the vulture. The latter drooped a moment, as if he would fall ; but, the next, he shook both his wings as if untouched, and prepared to swoop
EL RAKHAM. 109
downward on his enemy. The sharp stirrups of the horseman were in the flanks of his gal- lant beast, which now bore him, swift as his arrow, toward the river. When near the bank he checked his steed and wheeled. The rush of the enormous wings was heard directly over his head. But at that very moment the En- chanter, seeming to perceive that his assailant wore some protecting talisman, changed to a huge dragon, which darted at the neck of the horse and bore him to the ground. The nimble horseman extricated himself sooner than the dragon, and drawing his scimitar smote off, with his brother's skill, the monster's head. Instantly, the trunk and head became human and those of ABOULHASSAN. But, without paus- ing, NEFESA'S cousin snatched up the head, and running hurled it into the stream, then, turning, set his foot upon the body, which was already groping its way as if to join the head. Turning it over, while it writhed and struggled, he tore off the clothing from the back, found the plate of steel between the folds of leather, cut the band which secured it, —
110 ORIENTAL TALES.
at which the head in the water uttered a fear- ful yell, — and, removing the pad, drove his lance into that part of the spine which it had covered. Immediately the blood gushed from the three conduits in the neck, and the water in the river was for a moment streaked with red where the head had floated ; the head grew, livid, the body on the ground ceased to be convulsed, and all was over.
But within the castle, at the very moment when the Damascus blade of the horseman passed through the neck of the dragon, NEFESA to her horror felt the magic collar tighten on her own neck. Screaming for help, and call- ing all her handmaids about her, she endeav- ored, by putting her fingers between it and her throat, to lessen the pressure ; but in vain. Then her maids attempted to break and to cut the delicate meshes ; but they grew closer and closer, and resisted all force. More and more the fatal necklace impeded respiration. Falling into the arms of her women, her eyes straining from their sockets, and full of a hor- rible expression of fear and agony, her cheeks
EL RAKHAM. Ill
swollen and purple, her tongue protruded, NE- FESA gasped more and more feebly, and, as the last blood flowed from the body of her husband, she expired. And thus was punished treachery, — which nothing excuses.
The prudent and virtuous HABBEMAH es- poused the valiant cousin, and lived happily, though it was long before the thought of NE- FESA ceased to be painful, and ever it was re- garded by them both with melancholy, and with a tenderness perhaps which the unhappy woman did not deserve.
112 ORIENTAL TALES.
vm. THE BIKDS OF SOLOMON.
QOEEN MERNISA, not willing to confide to any body the education of her children in the first years of their life, related to them one day the following story.
King SOLOMON had, besides a great many other marvelous things, some birds which spoke the language of the country with a rare intelli- gence.5 One of these birds, wiser and more intellectual than all the rest, and which was called Deep-Blue, because he had a tuft of feathers of a deep blue color, flew away to visit his partner, which was setting in a neighboring forest. She was seated in her nest, and mourn- ed the absence of her mate, which, for some days, had not come to see her. When Deep- Blue heard her complaints from afar, he flew towards her, beat his wings, and opened his
THE BIRDS OF SOLOMON. 113
beak to give her a kiss. But she refused his caresses, and said to him, with an angry- mien:
" Return to King SOLOMON, whom thou lovest more than me, perfidious ! I pull out all my feathers to cover our little one; I fly with inquietude, right and left, to seek for nourish- ment, and thou thinkest not of my fatigues, fhou dwellest without care in the king's palace, thou drinkest in a golden cup, and thou sleep- est likewise under a golden roof. Return ; I will never see thee more !"
" Be not angry, my dear little creature," an- swered Deep-Blue, tenderly billing her ; " hence- forth I will never quit thee more. I have escaped for no other purpose than to live near thee ; I will bring thee nourishment ; we will build together our nest ; together we will take care of our little one ; and we will never sepa- rate."
The female suffered herself to be persuaded by these words, and forgave the amiable Deep- Blue his long absence. She had laid some days before a fine red egg ; she had brooded on
114 ORIENTAL TALES.
it assiduously ; and the same day there came out of it a little bird of rare beauty.
His head was yellow, his neck blue, his body white, his wings light green, and his tail red. His father and mother hopped with joy on see- ing the beauty of their child. They taught him to speak, led him with them in their ex- cursions, and made him taste the finest fruits in the neighborhood.
Thus lived Deep-Blue, happy with his wife and son, without once desiring to return to the court of the King.
The latter, no longer seeing his dear Deep- Blue, was greatly afflicted. He caused search to be made for him everywhere in the woods ; and as no one could find him, he dispatched two red birds of the same species in quest of him They were not so handsome as Deep-Blue , neither had they his exquisite sensibility ; but they surpassed all other birds in cunning. They flew for fifteen days, and met at last in some bushes Deep-Blue with his wife and his son, the little Bright-Green. The red birds represented that King SOLOMON, in the affliction caused him
THE BIRDS OF SOLOMON. 115
Dy the loss of his dear Deep-Blue, had chased them from his court, and would not see again any bird of their tribe. They complained of their misfortune ; " for," said they, " brought up in the luxury of the court and accustomed to its pleasures, an abode in savage woods will be for us the cruelest of all torments."
" That will soon be got over, my dear breth- ren," answered Deep-Blue. " For my part, I lead here a happy life. I love my wife and she loves me ; we are content, and our child excites in us the liveliest joy. We are free; we reside in the open air amid verdant boughs; and as we have no enemy to fear in the country of the good SOLOMON, tell me if the splendor of the court, whose loss you deplore, can be com- pared with my felicity? The powerful SOLO- MON himself, were he in my place for an instant, would avow, that, with all his wisdom and his great treasures, he is not so happy as I in my bower. Follow my counsel, my dear brethren ; forget the court and remain among us. As for me, I have made a vow to die here."
The red birds, seeing that dissimulation ef-
116 ORIENTAL TALES.
fected nothing, avowed sincerely that the King had sent them to seek his favorite. Deep-Blue was greatly afflicted on hearing this. He really loved the good King ; he had received from him many benefits; and it was in his eyes an act of ingratitude to resist his solicitations. On the other hand, he could not resolve to quit his wife and son. He knew not how to answer the red birds ; and he felt thereat a vexation that kept increasing. His wife, who perceived his embarrassment, took up the discourse and said:
"Go tell the King that Deep-Blue cannot surrender himself at his entreaty, because his wife wants him to remain with her. King SOLOMON is too wise and good to be angry against poor Deep-Blue because he obeys his wife."
Dtep-Blue, who, in the midst of courtiers, had contracted the habit of politeness, found the answer of his wife not at all proper, and told her that it was at least necessary to send to SOLOMON, with the red birds, their son, the little Bright- Green. The mother did not wish
THE BIRDS OF SOLOMON. 117
to let her son go ; she wept, and was in despair. But Deep-Blue persisted in his resolution. He gave his son instructions on the manner in which he ought to behave at court ; and as the little Bright- Green could not learn all in so short a time, his father confined his lessons to these three precepts: "Do nothing unjust; le complaisant to the king' s favorites ; and l>e discreet."
The King received the little Bright-Green with a great deal of kindness. The little bird prattled on every subject; and he said that his father did not come because his mother would not let him. SOLOMON still regretted his dear Deep-Blue, whose gayety and pleasantries he could not forget : the little bird, his son, had in truth finer feathers, but he was far from being so intellectual as his father. The King*having heard the red birds say that Deep-Blue had refused his invitation to the court out of ten- derness for his son, proposed to put the little Bright- Green to the test, to know if he merit- ed that great tenderness and were grateful to his parents. He caressed and coaxed the little
118 ORIENTAL TALES.
BrightrGreen ; he promised him a cup of gold, and a collar of silk, if he would engage his father to return to court. Bright- Green was vain ; he set a great value on ornament ; and as he did not love his parents, he promised all that was required of him.
He returned to his parents, and pretended to be very much frightened.
" Alas ! " he cried, " how glad I am, my dear parents, to find myself again writh you ! The King is angry with me ; he had me put in a little cage, and has threatened me with eternal imprisonment. I have escaped with difficulty. But SOLOMON has given orders to his fowlers to kill me, as well as you. Come, let us fly ! I will conduct you to a place I know of, quite near. There the fowlers will not discover us."
Father and mother were frightened : they followed their son without hesitation. The per- fidious Bright- Green had told a falsehood ; he led them into the snares which SOLOMON had caused to be spread. They were taken, and brought to the King's presence. The latter re- ceived his dear Deep-Blue with great kindness.
THE BIRDS OF SOLOMON. H9
" I will not force tliee to remain with me," he said, " provided thou wilt come ever} day to see me for some hours. I wished to put thy son to the proof, in order to know if he were worthy of thy love ; but, as he has betrayed thee, I must punish him for his perfidy."
The mother wept, and implored pardon for her son ; but the King said :
"The little Bright- Green is still young; perhaps this chastisement will correct him. If I did not punish his ingratitude, he might sup- pose that he had done well, and would become every day more wicked."
And, in fact, they shut up little Bright- Green in a cage, where he remained for a year. They gave him neither the cup of gold, nor the collar of silk. None of the birds had pity on him ; for nobody has regard for the ungrateful.
120 ORIENTAL TALES.
IX.
THE QUEEN OF THE MOUNTAINS.
A SULTAN of Egypt was sick. When lie saw that he was about to die, lie caused his three sons to come before him, recommended them to be united, and put into their hands a little box.
" You will find," he said, " in this box a col- lection of the finest diamonds. Share them be- tween you in equal portions; for I love you all three with equal tenderness."
The Sultan died ; and the three brothers pre- pared to divide the jewels. The diamonds were so different in value that an equal divi- sion appeared almost impossible. The heirs could not agree. They disputed at first, and then called their father's old Grand- Yizier to pronounce between them.
"Before I undertake this matter." said the
THE QUEEN OF THE MOUNTAINS. 121
Vizier, " I must relate to the Sultans, my mas- ters, an event which has much analogy with the present, and which will show them the best issue that this quarrel can have."
The Princes appeared curious, and the Yizier continued :
" I served in my youth the victorious RABUE, Sultan of India. He wished to recompense my faithful services, and named me chief of a regiment of a thousand horse. After the cap- ture of the city of Candahar, I received an order to conduct my men beyond the moun- tains which lie between Kabul and Thibet. These mountains are very elevated, and in many places inaccessible ; but the valleys are almost all inhabited.
" One day, after a toilsome march, we pitch- ed our tents in a valley near a village which was composed of only a few houses. Several of my people discovered, at the extremity of the valley, a large and old edifice, which resembled a half-ruined palace. An aged mountaineer told them that this castle belonged to the Queen of these mountains, who had resided
122 ORIENTAL TALES.
there for a long time, and who treated with particular hostility all strangers that durst enter the castle.
" ' Who, then, is this Queen ? ' inquired my people ; ' whence comes she, and how is her retinue composed ? '
" ' Who she is,' answered the old man, ' is more than I know. She appears to be a beau- tiful woman ; but I do not think that she is made of flesh and bone like other mortals, for she flies through the air like a bird. Her do- mestics are also marvels ; they fight in the air, ascend and descend the rocks like goats, and are so numerous that one might make of them a little army. We never dare approach the castle ; for those who have advanced too far with their flocks have been beaten almost to death ! '
" ' By the moon and her disks ! ' exclaimed one of my young officers, c here is a fine adven- ture for us. Let us pass the night at the castle ; the fair Queen will receive us no doubt kindly. The sight of an armed force such as ours would render tractable even the Spirit ASMUGH.'*
" They came and rendered me an account of
THE QUEEN OF THE MOUNTAINS. 123
all this. As I was not less curious to make the Queen's acquaintance, I caused a certain number of lamps to be brought to me by the inhabitants of the village, and I set forward with my soldiers.
"We entered the castle. I distributed my troops, and placed sentinels, as if we were ex- pecting an enemy. My people made a fire, ate, drank, and kept themselves tranquil ; but they got ready their arms. I ate with my officers, in a fine saloon which was lighted by the lamps furnished by the peasants.' We conversed till midnight, and were about to take our rest, when, quite near the saloon, a great noise was heard. We feared nothing; for we counted firmly on our numbers, and on the courage with which we had braved so many perils in the army of KABUK, and by which we had ac- quired the most brilliant glory. We seized our arms, we faced the side of the saloon whence the noise proceeded, and we waited tranquilly the event. The noise ceased ; and a few mo- ments after, we saw appear the* mistress of the Castle. Twelve armed men marched before
124 ORIENTAL TALES.
her with a haughty air ; belli nd her, and on each side of her, she had a number of women richly attired, with the rest of her suite. The aspect of her guard was so proud, their dress and their arms were so rich, that one might have supposed she was escorted by rajahs.* Bvt the splendor of the Queen, and the precious stones with which her robes were covered, fairly dazzled us.
" She appeared to me so lovely, and so full of majesty, that I remained speechless.
" ' How, my lord ! ' she said to me, with a half- smile, 'I find you here sabre in hand? Is it thus you usually make your visits ? '
" ' Madam,' I answered, £ pardon me this impoliteness ; I thought to find enemies in this place.'
"'And perhaps you have found them,' re- plied the Queen : ' but it is not with arms that you will conquer them.'
"I was about to make some reply to this challenge, when an awkward fellow, who ap-
* Princes.— See Note 7
THE QUEEN OF THE MOUNTAINS. 125
peared to come from my ranks, advanced to- wards the Queen, and seized her by the hand, declaring ' that the smile of such an angel was a match for fifty sabres ! '
" The Queen drew back indignant ; one of her women flew at the eyes of the insolent ; and I gave him a box. In the twinkling of an eye, every sabre was bared. The Queen's officers wished to revenge the insult, and mine cried that the culprit should be punished. Our troops, which were encamped in the court, heard these cries, approached with their arms, and filled the entire apartment.
" The Queen commanded silence, and asked the culprit who he was. The man made no answer. The Queen's officers said that he was one of us; but mine, who had never before seen him, maintained with me the contrary. The dispute grew violent; insult- ing words were exchanged on both sides. Sabres were crossed; the lamps were torn from the walls; blood flowed. The dark- ness and continual cries prevented all accom- modation. The conflict lasted till morning.
126 ORIENTAL TALES.
" When the day began to dawn, we saw the Queen standing at the door, laughing heartily.
" ' Open your eyes, madmen that you are,' said she, i and see with whom you are fight- ing.'
" The charm, which had bewildered us, ceased ; our fury changed into affright : for we saw that we were fighting, not with enemies, but among ourselves. I had two deep wounds, and I lay on the ground, without strength, in the midst of the dead that strewed the hall.
" l Courage, my friends ! ' I cried, with as strong a voice as I could gather ; ' seize the sorceress, and avenge the death of your com- panions."
" All that could still move rushed upon her, with lifted sabres. But she disappeared, with a burst of laughter that resounded for a long time from one end of the palace to the other.
"There remained scarcely a fourth of my people. I had the wounded carried to the vil- lage. When the dead were interred, I sent the rest of my troops forward, and promised to
THE QUEEN OF THE MOUNTAINS. 127
rejoin them, with the wounded, as soon as 1 should be cured. I was overwhelmed with grief at my disaster ; for I had lost by my rash- ness, in an inglorious adventure, the bravest of forces. Fearing the Sultan's anger, I took, when my wounds were scarred, another route : I embarked on board a vessel, and arrived in Egypt ; where the generous Sultan, whose death we this day deplore, received me in the number of his servants.
"This disaster teaches us," continued the Yizier, " that discord is particularly fatal among friends. It is union which constitutes strength : but when brothers are disunited, they become a laughing-stock to their enemies. I desire to see the sons of my benefactor strong, powerful, and happy. They will be so, if they act as brothers. I therefore hope the Sultans my masters will not despise the counsels of an old man. If they promise me to that effect, I will undertake to divide between them these jewels."
The three princes extended their hands to the old Yizier.
128
ORIENTAL TALES.
He divided the jewels into three portions, and drew lots. Each one was satisfied with that which fell to him. They left each other contented ; and were so powerful by reason of their brotherly union, that they made them- selves respected by all their neighbors.
THE PRISONER. 129
X.
THE PKISOKEK.
ALT, son of ABBAS, was one evening with the Caliph MAMUND, when his servants brought before him a man who was bound hand and foot. The Caliph, having great confidence in ALI, ordered him to guard the prisoner during the night, and to bring him to him the next day in order to have his sentence pronounced. ALI led home the prisoner, and locked him up in his harem, as being the surest part of his house ; for he judged from the looks of the Caliph that the latter was much incensed against the man. He asked the stranger who he was.
" I am of Damascus," answered the prisoner ; " my house is not far from the great mosque. "
" Heaven bless that city," exclaimed ALI, " and, more than all, that quarter ! for there a man saved my life."
130 ORIENTAL TALES.
The stranger, curious, asked who that man was.
" It is now some years," continued ALT, " since the Caliph removed from office the former governor, HUSSEIN, and named for his successor him who is there at this day. I was in the suite of the latter. HUSSEIN was a traitor who dreaded the Caliph's vengeance ; and when we entered the governmental palace we were sur- rounded on all sides by his partisans, and the greater part of us were massacred. I leaped out at a window, and saved myself in the neigh- borhood of the great mosque. I saw a door open. I entered, and prayed the proprietor, who came to meet me, to conceal me. He received me, and led me to his harem ; where I was sheltered from my enemies, and treated by an unknown person as a friend.
" At the end of a month, my host announced that a good opportunity offered to restore me to my country. He alluded to a caravan, which some days later was to set out for Bagdad. I was ashamed of my poverty, and I resolved to follow the caravan on foot. But what was my
THE PRISONER. 131
astonishment, when, on the day of departure, I found, at the door of the house, a handsome horse, a mule loaded with provisions, and a slave to wait upon me ! My host put into my hands a purse full of gold, escorted me himself to the caravan, and recommended me to his friends. Since that time, I have taken much pains to discover the name and rank of that generous man ; but I have never been able to learn, either from his friends or from others, who he was. I should die happy, could I find him and evince my gratitude."
" Thy desires are accomplished," replied the prisoner ; " I am the man who received thee in his house : dost thou not recognize me 2"
ALI was startled, and approached nearer. Age and misfortune had indeed altered the visage of the stranger ; but ALI, who carried the image of his benefactor in his heart, could not long mistake the resemblance which night had concealed from him ; and when the stranger had recalled to his recollection certain particu- lars, he remained no more in doubt. He em- braced his friend, released him from his fetters,
132 ORIENTAL TALES.
and asked him by what misfortune he had drawn upon himself the anger of the Caliph.
" Envious foes," replied the stranger, " have secretly accused me to the Caliph ; but of what I know not. I was carried off with violence from Damascus; I was not permitted to bid adieu to my wife and children. I know not what fate attends me ; but if, as I fear, I am destined to die to-morrow, do me the friendly act to announce my death to my family."
" !Nb, thou shalt not die !" cried ALI, weep- ing ; " thou art free ; thou shalt see again thy wife and thy children."
He made him a present of some diamonds for his wife, and of a purse filled with two thousand pieces in gold for the expenses of his journey. " Go, my friend," he said; " go find thy friends. Let the Caliph's anger fall on me ; I fear it not, provided I have saved thee."
" What dost thou ask ? To snatch me from a death that is yet doubtful, thou wouldst have me sacrifice a life that I have saved ! No, my friend, I am not so base as not to know how to die when it is necessary. Endeavor to con-
THE PRISONER. 133
vince the Calipli of my innocence : it is all 1 ask of thee. If thou canst not, I would rather die twice over than cause by my flight the destruction of my friend."
ALI entreated him anew. But the stranger was inexorable.
On the morrow, ALT, according to the in- structions he had received, betook himself to the presence of the Caliph. The monarch was enveloped in a flame-colored mantle, a dress which he assumed every time that he admin- istered justice. As soon as he saw ALI, he asked him where was the prisoner, and ordered him to bring the man before him.
" My lord," answered ALI, throwing himself at the foot of the throne, " there has happened, during the night, something strange to that prisoner !"
" By the shades of my fathers ! I swear to thee," cried MAMUND in anger, " that if the prisoner be escaped, thou shalt die in his place!"
" My life and his are in thy hands," said ALI; " thy slave asks thee but to listen to him."
134 ORIENTAL TALES.
After which he recounted how and on what occasion the man had saved his life. He told the Caliph, that to thank him for his ancient benefits, he had offered him his liberty, but that he had generously refused the offer.
" He is innocent," continued ALI ; " one who thinks and acts so nobly cannot be criminal : envious foes have calumniated him. But the great MAMUND is too just to condemn a brave man unheard."
MAMUND, who, setting aside his violence, was a prince of great virtues, admired the sen- timents of the prisoner and appeared touched by them.
" I pardon him, since thou implorest for him," said he. " Go carry him that news, and bring him before me."
ALI obeyed, and brought in the prisoner. The Caliph gave him a friendly reception, and had him clothed in a robe of honor. He gave him ten horses, ten mules, and ten thousand sequins; and, besides this, he wrote to the governor of Damascus a letter wherein he rec- ommended him as one of his favorites.
THE ENCHANTED WELL. 135
XL
THE ENCHANTED WELL.
(BY THE TRANSLATOR.)
AT the foot of a rocky hill, crowned by a ruined fortress, stood an old well, whose wa- ters were famous in all the country round, for their coolness, their sparkling clearness, and their supposed health-restoring properties. But they did not flow always. For many days in the month, not a drop could be procured. On others, after long teazing, the bucket might be made to gather up a very little, but it was mixed with sand, and was not cold. But at the full of the moon the water rose always in the old well, and the people for a single day drew it in abundance. Hence, and from its supposed properties, the well was thought to be enchanted.
It was now the day of the water. Several girls were grouped about the well, all of them
136 ORIENTAL TALES.
unusually lovely, as if each had picked the others out to be the mates in beauty of herself. But one, lovelier than all the rest, and yet the favorite of all the rest, because the sweetness of her temper, her obligingness and her active goodness made them forget the superiority of her charms, stood up, resting the jar she had filled upon a stone, and gazed, shading her eyes with her left hand, upon the fortress, around which some vultures were hovering.
" What dost thou see in those ill-omened birds to gaze at, ZARAH ?" asked one of her companions who was seated.
"I gaze not at them alone, but at the for- tress," replied the young girl.
" Thinking of him who is said to keep it ?"
"Thinking of him." And ZARAH, stooping, raised her jar.
" What would SELIM say to that ?"'
" Nothing, if he knew my thought. MAJLEK AHMED is too much like those evil birds to be to my liking."
" Ay wa,* may Allah confound him !" And
* Yes, indeed.
:
ZARAII AND HER COMPANIONS AT THE WELL.
THE ENCHANTED WELL. 137
the girls, lifting the jars to their heads, aban- doned the well, to give place to others.
As they neared their native village, on the return home, they passed an old man who lay beneath a plane-tree, seemingly exhausted. ZA- KAH instantly drew nigh. He made a sign for water. The young girl set down the jar, and put her hand beneath his shoulder, to help him rise sufficiently to drink. In so doing the jar was upset, and the greater part of the water flowed out. But while all the other girls ut- tered cries of regret and condolence, ZAKAH put the jar to the old man's lips, and said :
" Never mind, father. Drink ; and may it aid thee : it is from the Enchanted Well."
Then ZAKAH sprinkled the rest over his face, and, invoking the blessing of Allah, bathed his forehead ; that being one of the applications of the water, and said to be unfailing.
" O, ZARAH ! what wilt thou do now ? And what will the mother do ?" cried her compan- ions.
" My mother will not want for it ; I shall re- turn and fill my jar."
138 ORIENTAL TALES
" The blessing of Allah the Compassionate will fill it," said the old man, solemnly. " Take no heed thou, my daughter."
"Ay," said first one, then another of the girls. " In the name of Allah, we will all contribute. Thou shalt not need to return." And they wished to fill up her jar from their own. But ZAKAH, knowing how precious was the whole quantity to each of them, since on this day only for a whole month could any more be had, refused, and insisted on returning to the well.
" Let me go," she said, " and do not dimin- ish the little good I have done by making it no sacrifice. There is yet full time, and I am young and active."
u And the blessing of the Merciful One, who sees this action, make thy footstep light as the antelope's, and the way pleasant as the paths of Paradise, O thou chosen one among many," said the old man, rising boldly up, and stand- ing, as if invigorated by the water. " Go with- out fear, thou chiefest among maidens."
He laid his hand solemnly on the head of the tall and graceful girl, who felt as if she gathered
THE ENCHANTED WELL. 139
strength and courage from his blessing, and set forward on her return to the well, though the way was long, with a cheerful and rapid step.
When she arrived at the well, the sun was going down behind the old fortress, and the shadows of evening were over all the rocks. But there on one of them, darker than the shad- ows, and more terrible than the frowning rocks, sat MALEK AHMED himself. He seemed to be resting from some toilsome exercise, for he was panting ; and he looked as if he expected her. She made a step backward.
" Fear me not, ZAKAH," he said, smiling. " I saw thee give to the old wayfarer the water thou hadst drawn for thy sick mother. Wilt thou refuse a simple draught to me ?"
• No, O MALEK, not if thou need it," she answered, trembling ; for there was something in the dark but handsome visage of the Arab that she did not like, and his splendid eyes had an eager look that made her fearful. " Aid me not," she said, as he turned the windlass for her ; "I must draw it all myself, or it will lose its virtue."
140 ORIENTAL TALES.
" Silly child 1" said the young man : " Art thou too, with all thy intelligence, a slave to such old women's superstitions ?" He put his hand upon her shoulder. Then the girl, shrink- ing from him, clasped her own hands, and beg- ged him let her draw the water, as the night was coming and the way was long.
" But the way, O ZARAH, will seem short if I tread it with thee. Hast thou thought on what I offered ? "Wilt thou take me, and be richer than all the maidens of thy tribe ?" He seized her left hand in spite of her efforts, and put his right hand to her slender waist.
ZARAH felt all her danger. The stories told of MALEK AHMED, who was more than suspect- ed of being the chief of a band of robbers, were too rife for her not to dread his anger. Yet how to appease l^ra, to satisfy him ?
" O MALEK!" she replied, " is this a time for such language ? The mother waits me, and the hour is growing late. Let me draw the water and be gone."
" This is mere pretext," said MALEK ; and, looking in the girl's face, which she sought to
THE ENCHANTED WELL. 141
turn from him, he read there but terror and aversion. " Thou shalt not go home, to laugh with SELIM at my foolishness. I have thee, and I will hold thee." He threw his sinewy arms about her, and, while she screamed for help and struggled, bore her, as though she were a kid, up the rocky way that led to the fortress.
He was already near the stronghold, and, pant- ing, paused for a moment on a jutting crag, when a voice behind him called out loudly :
" Hound of Eblis ! MALEK, thou robber ! stop!"
It was the voice of SELIM ; and ZAKAH, who was nearly fainting, recognizing it, revived, looked, and saw the figure of SELIM coming after them, and called out, in accents of relief and joy, his name. Then MALEK, with a bitter curse, laid down his lovely burden, and turned like a hungry wolf upon the pursuer. But the latter was as eager, and, ere MALEK had drawn his dagger, was just below the jutting rock where MALEK stood.
SELIM was armed with a lance. Seeing this, MALEK, who had but his yataghan or
142 ORIENTAL TALES.
long dagger, turned about and stooped to pick up a large stone to hurl at him. Just at that moment, SELIM set his lance to the base and back of the rock, where there was a wide crevice, and, as the robber raised his arm,, heaved up, with a miraculous strength, the un- sure footing, already yielding under MALEK'S weight, and, in an instant, the robber and the rocky fragment were tumbled down the cliff, dashing from crag to crag, and stopping only at the base of the hill, where MALEK lay, lifeless and mangled, with portions of the broken rock upon him.
The avenger watched the terrible fall with a singular calmness, and, when all was over, lifted tenderly the body of ZARAH, now sense- less, and bore her down the hill.
When she revived, she found herself, not in the arms of SELIM, but of the old wayfarer to whom she had given the water. He smiled on her, as she drew from his embrace and looked about her as if for some one else.
" SELIM is not here," said the stranger ; " but his enemy and thine is there, at rest forever ;"
THE ENCHANTED WELL. 143
and lie pointed, not with a lance, but with his traveling-staff, to the foot of the hill, while ZA- KAH shuddered as she saw the vultures descend- ing and hovering over the crushed body and the broken rock. " Take now thy water, O maiden, and go thy way homeward. Virtue, if it often leads one into difficulties, yet as often rescues where no human hand could aid ; nor is even a drop of water, given in sincere char- ity, uncounted by Allah the Compassionate."
The speaker rose from her side, and his gar- ments became white and lustrous, and his face resplendent. For a moment he seemed to wear a crown of light, but his whole body became dim, as if a mist were round it, and finally dis- appeared ; and when ZAKAH, who fell on her face, and said the evening prayer, arose from her prostration, she found the water-jar already filled.
lit ORIENTAL TALES.
THE MAN OF SENSIBILITY.
FADHEL, son of YAHIA, favorite of the Calipli HAROON-AL-RASCHID, was so generous that he almost eclipsed his master, and, because of his virtues, he was sung by all the Arabian poets. Thus, on the birth of his first son, they com- posed in his honor, and that of the new-born child, a multitude of poems. But not one of these poems obtained his praise. He asked the celebrated DEMSSCHKI if he would not try to produce something better. DEMESCHEJ did BO : his poem obtained a general success ; and FADHEL recompensed the author with a present of ten thousand pieces of gold.
Some time after, FADHEL fell into disgrace, and the Caliph put him to death with all his brothers. DEMESCHKI could not forget his ben- efactor; and, as he often recalled, despite of
THE MAN OF SENSIBILITY. 145
nimself, the misfortune of his friend, this idea presented itself again to his mind, one day, when he was in a public bath. Absorbed in his own thoughts, he recited aloud some pas- sages of his poem; but when he came to a stanza which predicted to FADHEL his eternal happiness, the youth, whom the proprietor of the bath had appointed to wait upon him, fell senseless on the floor.
DEMESCHKI was astonished, and asked the young man, when he had recovered his senses, if he were unwell.
" No," he replied ; " but I should like to know who composed the verses thou hast just recited."
" I composed them myself," replied DE- MESCHKI, " in order to congratulate the Yizier FADHEL on the birth of his first son."
" Knowest thou," continued the youth, " where now is the son of the unhappy FADHEL ?"
" No," said DEMESCHKI.
" I am he," returned the youth. " Since the death of my father, I have served in this house as a voluntary slave, for I know no other means
146 ORIENTAL TALES.
of gaining my subsistence. On hearing thee speak of my father's virtues, the sense of my deep wretchedness smote me so painfully, that I fainted."
"What!" cried DEMESCHKI, " thou art the eldest son of my benefactor, of him to whom I owe my present ease ? Now Heaven be praised that has offered thee to my gratitude ! I am old, I have no heir : thou shalt be in place of one. Come with me to the Cadi."
The young man fell a weeping, kissed the old man's hands, and said :
" God forbid that I should take from thee what thou hast received from my father ! Thou art a generous man ; but I cannot accept thy offer, without diminishing my father's bene- factions, for which he will be recompensed in Heaven ! If thou wouldst show thyself good towards me, make me pass for thy relation, and procure me a place in the Caliph's army, where I hope to honor my father's memory by my courage and my virtue. It is the sole means thou canst use to save the race of thy friend ; for I would rather die than take back
THE MAN OF SENSIBILITY. 147
ay father's gifts, or retrench anything from his good works."
DEMESCHKI did as the young man desired, and procured him, through his friends, a place in the army ; but he could never induce him to accept anything but the sum necessary for his equipment. The young man acquired in a short time so great a reputation for bravery, that, under the succeeding Caliph, he attained an eminent station, and revived, by the reve- lation of his origin and his real name, the almost forgotten memory of his father.
U8 ORIENTAL TALES.
xm. THE ASS OF DADSCHIAL.
THE inhabitants of the Long Valley have an ancient law, by which they are never permitted to choose for king a native, but are always obliged to select a foreigner, unless one of the sons of the defunct king should fulfill, within a fixed time, a condirion prescribed by the high- priest. In virtue of this law, I appeared, seven days after the death of my father, King REM- KORIM, in the temple, to receive the order of the Prophet by the mouth of his high-priest.
" Prince SELIM," said he, addressing me, when I had approached the altar, " the Prophet commands thee to go seek on the mountain of Kaf the ass of DADSCHIAL, and to bring him to me within four months from now. The com- mission is difficult to fulfill, but it lias nothing in it impossible ; otherwise the divine Prophet
THE ASS OF DADSCHIAL. 149
not have charged thee with it. Depart then boldly : the most insurmountable things become easy to him who has courage."
All the assembly was astonished at the order, and regarded me with looks of compassion. But what could be done ? I must needs obey, or renounce the throne. I provided myself with money and with some jewels. After tak- ing leave of my friends, I embarked in the first vessel ready to sail, and arrived safely at the point I wished. There I purchased a slave, two horses and a good mule. We armed our- selves, my servant and I ; we loaded the mule with provisions, and took the road to the moun- tain of Kaf. As this mountain surrounds the whole country, it was not difficult to find its position. We soon reached it ; we proceeded along its base by short journeys, making a good meal every time that we arrived at an inhab- ited place. We made inquiries as to DADSCHIAL and his ass ; but nowhere could anybody give us concerning them the least information.
We had traveled in this manner for three months without learning anything of what
150 . ORIENTAL TALES.
we desired, when one day we saw upon our road a thicket of bushes, whence issued cries that seemed to come from several voices.
" Brother," I said to my slave, " lead the mule to one side ; let us approach and see what is passing in that quarter. If an unhappy per- son have need of our succor, we will expose our lives to save him ; for his misfortune may to-day or to-morrow become our own."
We bent our bows, and advanced towards the place where we heard the cries. Seven brigands were fighting against three travelers, who, protected by a large tree, were defending themselves courageously. Our arrows pros- trated two of the robbers in an instant; we finished two more with our sabres ; and, when the remaining three turned upon us, the trav- elers slew them without difficulty.
After embracing the strangers, I conducted them to our mule, and regaled them with the best provisions that we had. During the repast, I related the object of my journey, begging them to give me some information concerning DADSJHIAL and his ass.
THE ASS OP DADSCHIAL. 151
" One never does a good act in vain," said the youngest of the travelers. "You have found in us those who, better than anybody else, can put you in the way of what you seek. "We reside at the very foot of the mountain on which the animal feeds, and we know all that must be done to procure possession of him."
" God be praised !" I exclaimed : " since you are so well informed, my friends, I am at the end of my travel."
" ~Not so fast, my lord," replied the traveler ; " one does not always reach one's end, however well one may know the means of attaining it. Let us for the present continue our journey ; arrived at the place in question, we will talk more at length on what concerns you. As for your horses and your mule, you may leave them here ; for our route will lead us upon rocks that are almost insurmountable, and which these animals cannot climb."
I did not reflect long upon what I had to do. I caused the two panniers which the mule car- ried to be emptied, and divided the provisions into five equal portions. The three travelers
152 ORIENTAL TALES.
and myself took each a portion on our shoul- ders ; and for the fifth, I left it with my slave, saying to him :
" I make thee a present, not only of thy lib- erty, but of these three animals besides, and of this purse. Take thy way back, and pray God for me."
He departed weeping ; and I followed my companions. "We traveled during six days between rocks and abysses. On the seventh, we descended into a verdant valley, traversed by several streams. Numerous flocks were pastur- ing in it. In fine, towards evening, we arrived at a large village. The youngest of my com- panions led me to his house, and regaled me as his friend.
" My lord," he said to me, when we were alone, " on the top of the mountain at whose foot we reside, there is a wood of odoriferous trees. In this wood browses the ass of DAD- SCHIAL ; for he loves only agreeable and sweet odors. He is black in body, and has two great yellow wings. His disposition, moreover, is very odd; for he cannot endure, without be-
THE ASS OF DADSCHIAL. 153
-coming savage, either an unpleasant smell, or an excessive weight, or a rider agitated by fear. For the first two difficulties, it is easy to apply a remedy ; but the third deserves to be con- sidered : for if the ass of DADSCHIAL perceive in thee the least fear, when he rises into the air like an eagle, it is all over with thee ; in the twinkling of an eye, he will fling thee from mid-heaven to the earth."
" 1 shall not want courage," I replied : " let our ass rise as high in the air as he pleases, I shall care but little : it is not of having my head turn that I am afraid."
My host was satisfied. We rested two days, and on the third, at dawn, we set out on our route. We had to scale a multitude of rocks, until, towards noon, we reached a beautiful spring. There 1 bathed, after having carefully cleansed my sabre, and the clothes I wore. That done, my guide showed me the path, and wished me good luck. He then turned back, • because," he said, " he could not accompany me further, without bringing on himself the anger of DADSCHIAL."
154 ORIENTAL TALES.
I ascended courageously the mountain, I reached the odoriferous wood, and I found the ass in every respect such as my host had de- scribed him. I approached the ai^imal with- out his taking alarm ; he even endured my caresses. I coaxed him sufficiently long to make sure of him. At length, I profited by a favorable moment, and leaped upon his back. Immediately the ass spread his great wings, and rose into the air. The noise he made in flying resembled a hurricane ; his swiftness was greater than that of a discharged arrow. The valleys and the mountains disappeared beneath me, and before a half-hour had elapsed, I was hovering over the great ocean. My heart was light and gay ; it seemed to me incapable of fear ; when I perceived before me in the clouds a great black giant, who held in his hand a burning javelin with which he took aim at me. He had but a single eye, covered by a single eyebrow; but that eye shone like a star, and its look seemed to presage my destruction. It was DADSCHIAL himself! His unexpected ap- pearance, under that terrific figure, had upon
THE ASS OP DADSCHIAL. 155
me the effect of a thunderbolt. Perhaps, on recollection, I should have recovered from my fright ; but the ass would not wait so long. He reared, and shook himself with such force, that I fell into the sea.
The waves passed over my head ; but, hap- pily for me, I soon recovered consciousness. I held my breath, and rose to the surface. Knowing how to swim, and lightly clad, I re- mained so long upon the water that, at last, certain compassionate mariners, who, from a neighboring strand, had perceived my fall, were enabled to approach in boats to my res- cue. I learned from them that I was near the island of the generous FERIDOON, and that that good Genius received in his .dominions the un- happy of every class. At my desire, they landed me there. The good FERIDOON gave me a friendly reception. He counseled me to remain with him, and forget in his solitude, consecrated* to peaceful meditation, the storms of public life. I complied. The numerous kings, sons of kings, and heroes, who, before me, had taken refuge in the island of FERIDOON, because
156
ORIENTAL TALES.
their career on the ass of DADSCHIAL had been as unfortunate as mine, received me with pleas- ure as their companion. I consoled myself among them ; and amid the tranquillity which reigned in the Isle of Consolation, I wished at least to put my history into writing, and deliver it to my brethren for their instruction.
THE WATER OF LIFE. 157
XIV.
THE WATEE OF LIFE.
THE prophet SOLOMON was complaining one day of the short duration of human life.
" What avails," said he, " my great wisdom, since it is not permitted me to taste its fruits ? The greatest part of my days were passed before I had experience ; and now, that I would put to use what I have acquired, I am on the verge of the grave. What is the wisdom of man, but a transient flower? It puts forth leaves many days and weeks before its cup is opened • but, as soon as it has passed the age of its maturity, its beauty fades; it withers without having seen its fruit."
He spoke thus, and was filled with sorrow ; when, raising his eyes, he saw an angel, a vase of sapphire in his hand, descend from Heaven.
" SOLOMON," said the servant of Divine Pow
158 ORIENTAL TALES.
er, " I come from the throne of the Eternal. He has heard thy complaint, and has sent me to bring thee the water of life. If thou drink from this vase, thou wilt become immortal, and thou wilt enjoy an eternal youth. If thou drink not, thou wilt pass away, like all that are flesh, when thy hour shall have come. The Eternal leaves thee to thy choice ; do as shall seem best to thee."
The angel deposited the vase at the prophet's feet, and vanished.
SOLOMON knew not what to do. He called together his viziers. All counseled him to choose immortality ; but as BUTIMAR, the wisest among them, was not present, the prophet had him summoned, and put to him the same ques- tion which he had addressed to the others.
" Great King," replied BUTEMAII, " this water of life — is it destined for thee alone ? or canst thou likewise give unto others to drink of it ?"
" The Almighty," answered SOLOMON, " has accorded this favor to me alone."
" In that case," replied the Yizier, " thy chil- dren, thy friends, the most beloved of thy wives,
THE WATER OF LIFE. 159
will die one after another. Like a tree which one strips, every year, of its fairest fruit, thou wilt lose, every month, every week, every day, a favorite, a friend, a man dear to thy heart. "What charms can there be in an immortality, whose lot is one continual succession of mourn- ful accidents ? If all that thou lovest become not immortal with thee, immortality is but an eternal torment."
" I think as thou," replied the prophet. '•' This earth was not created to bear immor- tal children. Were it otherwise, the sun should stand still in the midst of heaven. My com- plaint was unjust. A wise man who should be obliged to remain forever in this valley of foolishness, to bear eternally the chains of earthly passions, and who should see before him no issue to the tortuous path of life, would be the most unhappy man that the sun ever shone upon."
When the prophet returned to his chamber, the water of the vase had evaporated. He kneeled and said :
" Lord, pardon Thy servant for having pre-
160
ORIENTAL TALES.
surned to censure Thee in thy works ! With Thee alone are wisdom and reason ; it is through them that Thou hast regulated all things ; and the child of the dust can only admire what proceeds from Thee."
THE RECOMPENSE. 161
XT.
THE KECOMPENSE.
THE Caliph HAROON-AL-RASCHID, being one day at the chase, met an old man who was planting a walnut-tree.
" What a fool is this old man I" said the Ca- liph to his suite ; " he acts as if he were still a youth, and were to enjoy the fruits of that tree."
As his followers likewise made a jest of the old man, the Caliph approached him, and asked him what age he was.
" Eighty years complete, my lord ; and I am, thank God, still as well as a man of thirty."
" How much longer dost thou think to live," continued the Caliph, " that thou plantest, at an age so advanced, young trees which bear so tardy fruit ? Why thus give thyself a use- less occupation ?"
162 ORIENTAL TALES.
" My lord," answered the old man, " I shall be contented when I shall have planted these trees, without troubling myself to think whether I shall enjoy their fruits or not. It is just that we should do as our fathers have done : they planted trees whose fruits we eat : since we have profited by the toil of our fathers, why should we be, for our successors, less provident than our fathers have been for us ? I consider, that that which the parent cannot enjoy, the son will gather."
The generous HAROON, whom this answer pleased, gave the old man a handful of gold pieces.
"Who now can say," continued the joyful old man, " that I have labored uselessly this day, since the young tree, though just now planted, bears already such fine fruit? The saying is just, that he who does good is always richly recompensed."
THE BLUE PALM-TREE. 163
XVL
THE BLUE PALM-TKEE.
THE sun was setting, and the winds were murmuring in the foliage of the trees, when I entered, in one of my pilgrimages, a solitary country. Worn out by heat and fatigue, I sat myself under a spreading tree, and began to mourn the pains of my condition.
" What crime have I committed," I said to myself, " that I am forced to sustain my life by alms ? Am I not as good as those who live in abundance, and who despise me because of my indigence ? Why, of all the goods of this earth, has there not fallen to my lot enough to enable me to lead a calm and tranquil life ? Riches would not have corrupted me more than pov- erty, which, with all its painful privations, has not yet persuaded me to an act of injustice."
I complained thus of the perverseness of fate,
164 ORIENTAL TALES.
which had made of me a dervis, and which had denied me the sweets of life. My head was dropped in sadness on my breast, when I heard a noise, and saw appaar before me a virgin of supernatural beauty. Her azure vest- ment touched the earth, and her fair hair floated on her shoulders like the rays of the sun in the firmament. In her right hand she held a golden wand, on which was carved a white snake ; in her left she bore a branch of blue palm.
" MUASER," she said, " I am the fairy GO- BEE, the protectress of the wise. I heard thy complaints and I am come to fulfil thy desires, provided that thy heart be sufficiently armed against the corruption of wealth, as thou hast just boasted. At the end of this valley, thou wilt find a spring which gives birth to a little stream. There is in that spring a blue pebble : take it. Follow the little stream unto the river, and the river itself to the place where it divides into two branches, and forms a little island, or rather, a garden. In that garden grows the blue palm-tree. That palm-tree bears dates
THE BLUE PALM-TREE. 1G5
that have within them a stone of gold. On the left bank of the river, there is a bridge of marble guarded by a hundred lions. Put, before they perceive thee, the blue pebble into thy mouth, and walk courageously through their midst ; for that pebble has the property of rendering invisible him who thus uses it. "When thou hast reached the palm-tree, gather three dates. Take them with thee without touching the rest ; for those three are sufficient, and will produce in a single day, when thou shalt have planted them, three large blue trees with the same fruits. Grave well in thy mem- ory what I tell thee ; thou art allowed to take but three dates."
Thus spoke the virgin : she touched my fore- head with the blue branch which she held in her hand, and disappeared. As joyous as a prisoner the gates of whose prison are opened unexpectedly, I rose with vivacity, and pursued the route indicated. All, whereof the virgin had spoken to me, I found conformable to her words. I reached the spring, and took the pebble designated ; I passed along the left bank
i66 ORIENTAL TALES.
of the stream and of the river ; I saw the lions; I made myself invisible, and I crossed to the other side.
On approaching the garden, an odor so sweet, BO delicious, of flowers and of fruits, assailed my senses, that I stopped at every step, inhal- ing long draughts of the scented air. It was another thing when I had entered. I could have wished to possess as many eyes as there are stars in heaven, in order to take in at a single glance the dazzling beauty and the varied colors of the flowers, the trees, and the shrubs. However, all these beauties of the vari- ous vegetables appeared to me to be eclipsed by that of the blue palm-tree. Its trunk shone like the precious azure of Samarcand, covered as it was with a fine net-work, marbled with golden veins. Its large leaves sparkled like the purest sapphire under the light of the sun; and its fruits ! how shall I describe them ? There is. nothing earthly that can be compared to their attractive beauty. By MOHAMMED and his son-in-law Au, son of ABU-THALIB! my fancy can conceive of nothing more enchant-
THE BLUE PALM-TREE. 167
ing. Methought that, in seeing them, a secret fire was burning up my soul. My lips burned to taste them, and my whole being remained absorbed by the sweetness of their odor. Yes, I believe that I should have died of desire, if I had longer resisted the temptation. I drew the blue pebble from my mouth ; I stretched out both my arms ; I gathered and devoured with passion those marvelous fruits.
"What enjoyment! I was ravished by their delicious flavor. But my happiness was to last, unfortunately, but a few moments. Scarcely had I drawn the blue pebble from my mouth, when the lions perceived me. They ran up furiously from all sides ; they precipitated themselves upon me ; they would have overthrown and torn me into pieces, if the azure-robed virgin with the sunny locks, had not, by her appear- ance, chased away the sanguinary animals. I threw myself at her feet, asking pardon for my imprudence.
" MUASER," she said, " thy heart is weaker than I thought ; it can support poverty, but not riches. Begone, and complain not hencefor-
1C8 ORIENTAL TALES.
ward if Fate has not put upon thy shoulders a burden for which they are too weak; think that the best possessions are those which one acquires by labor and activity."
At these, almost angry words, she touched me on the head with the blue branch, and dis- appeared.
As for me, methought I had awoke from a deep sleep.
I opened my eyes. The river and the garden had disappeared, and I was still seated under the solitary tree where I had fallen asleep The sun was already sinking behind the distant mountains. Therefore, I took my staff, and, continuing my journey, I reached at the close of the day the termination of my pilgrimage.
THE CONSOLATION IN MISFOKTUNE. 169
XVII.
THE CONSOLATION IN MISFOKTUNE.
A POOR dervis was going on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He was barefoot ; for he was so poor that he could not purchase shoes. As the burn- ing sand on which he trod blistered his feet, he complained of the hardship of his lot, and pre- sumed to say that Providence was unjust in having refused him what it had accorded even to the birds of the fields. At length, when he had reached the city of Kafah, he saw at the door of the great mosque a poor man both of whose legs had been amputated. This sight made him reflect.
" My complaints of Providence were rash," he said : " what have I done to be more happy than that man, who, like a worm, is obliged to creep from one place to another ?"
He entered the mosque, knelt down, repented
170
ORIENTAL TALES.
of his impatience, and continued his pilgrimage with a contented heart. The road had in a few days hardened his feet, and he arrived at Mecca without remembering that he had made the journey barefoot on a burning sand.
THE KING AND THE GOATHERD. 171
XVUL
THE KING AND THE GOATHEED.
(BY THE TKANSLATOE.)
A GOATHERD sat upon a rock piping to his herd. It was a pipe he had made himself, not perhaps without a model, yet still without as- sistance. The strains he drew from it were certainly not the most ravishing, but they satis- fied his vanity and his untutored ear, and he played, I have said, to his herd alone, so that the music was as well for the occasion as if it had been the sweetest notes of the finest flute played by a cunning hand. The water of a cascade, which tumbled from the hills above, ran placidly enough on the level ground be- neath, and seemed, with its hoarse murmur, to take a part in a rustic duet, which had none but goats to hear, and they not very atten- tive.
172 ORIENTAL TALES.
Presently there came other listeners and spec- tators. A cavalcade approached in grand ar- ray, surrounding a litter in which was some exalted personage, in fact the Sultan himself. The goatherd, who was a mere boy, suspended his music to gaze upon the horsemen. But the King had observed him from a distance, and had been struck by his air of contentment and health, and by that gaiety of his visage, which was only moderated, not dispelled, by the com- ing of the Sultan and his train. Now this Sultan was a moody and dejected man, ill in body because he had exhausted in the pursuit of pleasure the share of health which Provi- dence had allotted to him, and dejected in mind because he had the sense to see his folly but not the strength of will to mend it, and, like the prophet SOLOMON, found all things vanity, be- cause he had abused or used with indiscretion all things.
So the Sultan had the litter stopped, and the goatherd summoned to him.
When the youth, who had thrown himself before the litter with his forehead to the ground,
DAOUD PIPING TO HIS GOATS.
THE KING AND THE GOATHERD. 173
had risen at the King's command, the monarch said to him encouragingly,
"Art thou happy?"
" If it please my lord the Sultan."
"It does please me, boy. So much indeed, I would I were as thou. Thou sleepest well no doubt, and never find'st the day too long?"
The monarch forgot the youth had not yet lived to half the period of his own years.
" Oh no, my lord the Sultan ; my herd need watching, and I am so tired when the night comes, that I cannot help but sleep."
" Happy fellow !" said the King. " I ques- tion now if thou wouldst change with me."
The rustic looked inquisitive ; he did not comprehend the King.
" Am I right ?" resumed the King : " thou wouldst not be as I, if thou couldst, wouldst thou ? Look at this splendid escort, the horses and the riders, and then look at me, sad and weary and careworn. "Wouldst thou change with me, if thou couldst? give up thy herd, and lie here even as I ?"
1U ORIENTAL TALES.
The goatherd looked at the glittering throng and at the Sultan. His countenance glowed; and, after a moment, he said :
"I would, my lord?"
"Thou art a fool," said the monarch. "I would, by Allah, change with thee, this mo- ment ! Give him gold, and set on."
Two or three gold pieces were thrown to the goatherd ; and the train passed on.
The night came. The Sultan lay on his couch, uneasy. He must have been in a pecul- iar mood. He had seen goatherds and happy boys often enough, but he could not get this one out of his mind.
As he lay, with his face to the wall, he heard his name called, and, turning about, saw to his amazement a stranger standing but a few feet from him.
" ABD TIL MEDJID," said the stranger, " why reachest thou forth to thy sabre ? Do I look threatening ?"
The visitor was grave and lofty, and wore a snow-white beard. There was a singular and overpowering quietude in his mien, but his
THE KING AND THE GOATHERD. 175
eyes flashed from their deep orbits a light that seemed to penetrate to the very heart and brain of the gazer. The Sultan drew back his hand ashamed, and said, in an ill-assured tone :
" Who art thou ?"
" I am a servant of the Most High. I come to fulfil thy wishes. Art thou constant in them? "Wouldst thou indeed change places with the herdsman?"
The monarch hesitated. "Could that be?" he said, slowly.
" The boy is filled with longing like thyself. The thought thou didst put into him has marred for a night the happiness thou didst envy. Shall it be restored on the morrow ? or wilt thou take it, and let him be as thou ?"
" Again I ask, is that possible ?"
" All things are possible to the Most High."
" But should I be happy ?"
" That is for thee to experience. I assure it not. Thou shalt, however, know what is the life he leadeth, and he shall have the taste of thine."
"And if I accept this change, is it irrevocable?"
176 ORIENTAL TALES.
"No."
" Then let me try it ; for I loathe my present being, and would rather be a snail in the gar- den-walk than the thing I am."
Scarce had he finished, when ABD UL MEDJID fell into a deep sleep ; and, at the same time, DAOUD the goatherd fell into a like insensibil- ity. Then the soul of ABD TIL MEDJID passed into the body of DAOUD, and DAOUD'S took possession of the vacant body of ABD UL MEDJID.
When the morrow came, the goatherd led his herd to the hills. But there was now a man's soul where was late a boy's, and this soul was an instructed and had been a suffering one. It remembered not the wants of its past life, it was not of a Sultan's rank that it thought, for it forgot it had belonged to, or rather had been, ABD UL MEDJID ; but it had ambition, and ele- vated tastes and fancies. The goatherd took up the pipe ; it was coarse and scarcely clean, — he feared to touch it ; the herd worried him ; and the hills, though at first they pleased him, lost in a little while all their attraction. ABD
THE KING AND THE GOATHERD. 177
UL MEDJID cursed his own life, without being conscious he had ever known a better ; he cursed it, because the better had unfitted him for it.
DAOUD, on his part, rose to be attended. But, to the surprise of his servants, he took the wa- ter from their hands and preferred waiting on himself. When the Diwan was assembled, he listened with impatience. The Viziers found his answers childish and irrelevant ; they feared their Sultan was losing his mind. But in fact it was the mind of the boy DAOUD, of the un- lettered and inexperienced goatherd, that was incapable of proper judgment and impatient of reflection. That part of the being which makes it conscious of what affects the body was there, and made DAOUD feel, from ontward things, all that the Sultan would have felt, but the intel- lect took other note of them, and weighed them differently, and what had been of little moment to ABD UL MEDJID pressed down DAOUD to the earth. The splendor about him he had no relish for; the viands pleased him, but he thought them too complex and over-perfumed; every-
178 ORIENTAL TALES.
thing, in short, that surrounded him was too refined or complex for his intellect ; it required taste, and breeding, and experience, and some- thing more, a something that DAOUD' s parents had not given him, to enable him to enjoy or to understand il.
And now DAOUD in turn, in the Sultan's lit- ter, passes the hill where sits ABD UL MEDJID as the goatherd, but sits dejected and scowling. The rustic reed breathes forth no music, the goats browse beside him, above him, behind him, everywhere unheeded. But his eyes flash as he sees the gilded and prancing train, and when DAOUD from the litter, with a kind of reminiscence and the impulse of his natural spirit, has him summoned to his side, ABD UL MEDJTD runs up eagerly, and bows lowly, but does not prostrate himself.
" That is spirit," said the uncouth mind of DAOUD. "What a proud look thou hast, O boy ! Yet thou lookedst sour enough just now. What, in the Prophet's name, wast thou scowl- ing at ? These are pretty goats."
" Pardon me, my lord," said the transformed
THE KING AND THE GOATHERD. 179
monarch, in a tone and style more courtly than the mock Sultan's, for his mind dictated it, "thy servant cannot see it."
"Thou art unfit for thy position, fellow! Now, so Allah were pleased, I would I were in it. Wouldst thou like to change with me ?"
ABD UL MEDJID drew himself up, and looked so proudly through his round and boyish eyes !
"There ! I thought so 1" said DAOUD. "What a fool !" And, sighing, he bid the train pass on, saying to his next attendant, he thought he would stop to-morrow and drink some goats- milk at the herdsman's hut. But he gave the boy no money.
So when the night came, when ABD UL MED- JID drove back his herd to their owner's hut, he felt sick at heart, and resolved that on the mor- row he would leave his master and offer himself for service to some military chieftain, that he might one day ride like the horsemen he had seen about the Sultan; while DAOUD, on his part, wished that all the days would be nights, or that he might see no more the pomp that
180 ORIENTAL TALE&
wearied him and the ministers that made his head ache.
That night, the soul of ABD UL MEDJTD re- sumed its former place, and DAOUD'S returned to dwell in the body that slept unconscious on the hard ground in the goatherd's hut.
As ABD UL MEDJID opened his eyes in his royal chamber, he saw the old man of the night before standing by him, gazing on him. He tried to recollect himself.
" Have I dreamed," he said, " O servant of Allah ? or didst thou really put me in the goat- herd's place ?"
" Thou hast really been, for an entire day, what thou didst wish to be. Art thou satis- fied?"
ABD UL MEDJID gathered his thoughts, re- membered, and shuddered.
" I am answered," said the messenger. — "Henceforth, bear with thy condition, O ABD UL MEDJID, and amend it, if thou canst, by earnest and virtuous resolve. But believe now, that though thou mayst be unhappy as a king thou wouldst be worthless as a goatherd."
THE KIN^ AtfD THE GOATHERD.
m
ABD UL MEDJID slept again. And when he woke, the next morning, it was to make a vir- tuous resolve. But the habit of self-indulgence was too old in himv He grew no better. But he bore his splendid misery with resignation, and looked no longer moody, though always melancholy.
182 ORIENTAL TALES.
XTY,
THE PEASANT OF BILBIS.
A PEASANT of Bilbis was carrying corn to Cairo, to sell it there. He had no other compan- ion of his journey than his ass, which bore slow- ly before his master his load consisting of two sacks. When quite near the city, he met a man, who, after a friendly salutation, said to him :
" Friend, I have been long expecting you ; you must resign to me your corn : here is ear- nest."
And, without waiting a reply, he put a sequin in his hand.
The peasant wished to examine the piece of gold; but immediately the earth sunk under him, and he fell, with his ass, into a deep cavern.
THE PEASANT OF BILBIS. 183
" "Where am I?" he cried, in terror; wlieu lie saw on all sides, on the floor of the vault, huge heaps of gold coin, guarded by great dogs with burning eyes, which threatened to tear in pieces anyone who should venture to touch ^ the money.
The peasant of Bilbis stepped, trembling, between the heaps of gold, dragging his ass after him, and darting his eyes into every corner, to see if he could not find some outlet; when the stranger, who had given him the sequin for earnest-money, came to meet him.
" By the Prophet and all the saints !" cried the peasant, " I pray you, tell me where I am, and help me to get out of this cavern ?"
" Courage, my friend ! " said the stranger ; "you are in the Sultan's treasury. He has heard speak of you, and he permits you to fill both your sacks with gold."
The peasant refused to lend faith to these words ; but when, on a sign from the treasurer, the dogs had wagged their tails and hid them- selves, he took courage.
184 OKIENTAL TALES.
" The gooa lord Sultan ! who can have spo- ken to hirn about me ?" said he, filling his sacks so full, that his ass, now somewhat old, could scarcely bear them. AY hen he had finished, he took his ass by the bridle, and said:
" Well, my lord ! present my compliments to the Sultan, and show me, if you please, the outlet of this cavern."
" You have only to shut your eyes a moment," replied the treasurer, " and you will find your- self immediately on the road where I met you."
The peasant obeyed, and closed his eyes; and, when he opened them, he was seated on the great road to Cairo, holding the bridle of his ass in his hand, lie perceived, to his great fright, that during the sweet slumber which had transported him to the Sultan's treasury, some crafty robber had carried off both his sacks of grain.
" Double fool that I am !" he began to cry, tearing his beard ; " I dream of another's trea- sures, and let myself be robbed of my own property ! "
THE PEASANT OF B1LBIS. **&
He would have run after the thief or thieves : but he thought better of it, and said to his companion :
" Come, my friend, let us go home ; another time, we will take our nap before going to market."
186 ORIENTAL TALES.
XX.
THE TRANSFORMATION.
A KING of India was old and had no children As he loved his people, and feared that the pride of his emirs, after his death, would kindle bloody wars in his dominions on account of the election of his successor, he designated to reign after him whatever stranger, the morning after his death, should enter first by the eastern gate of his capital. He died soon after; and the inhabitants ran to the gate in question, to see him whom Fate should send them for Sultan. The first that arrived was a poor dervis, who was going from one town to another to beg his daily bread. They received him with great cries of joy, clothed him in royal robes, set him on an elephant, and, after having led him in procession through the city, conducted him to the palace, where the emirs acknowledged him for their sovereign.
THE TRANSFORMATION". 18t
The rapid passage from the most painful poverty to a brilliant throne, surrounded with every earthly splendor, intoxicated the dervis for some time ; but at last he became as indiffer- ent to the charms and pleasures of his new con- dition as he had been to the pains of his past. As the happy commencement of his reign was not slow in changing into disquiet ; as it hap- pened that discontented emirs conspired against him; as powerful enemies, his neighbors, car- ried war and trouble into his country ; as quar- rels and complaints surrounded on all sides his brilliant throne ; he, began to perceive that not only he had gained nothing in happiness by his change of state, but that on the contrary he had lost something in joy and content- ment.
Whilst this new Sultan was lamenting the pains of his condition, one of his acquaintances, having heard of his elevation to the throne, came to see him, and congratulated him on his good fortune.
" Praised be God," said he, " who, at his will, makes the rose to grow in the midst of thorns,
188 ORIENTAL TALES.
and who transforms into a puissant king a poor dervis !"
" Name me not fortunate," replied the Sultan ; " for, in the state in which thou seest me, I find myself more unhappy than in my first situation. Thou seest but my robes, thou dost not penetrate into my heart. How blessed was the time when together we roamed the world ! "We slept upon the ground, but we slept there tranquil ; we fed upon unwholesome food, but our pilgrimages, and our gaiety without care, preserved our health. Now, it is just the reverse : I lie upon beds of satin, but I find myself thereon plunged in fear and in vexation ; I wear sumptuous appa- rel, I eat well-seasoned viands, but my heart is feeble and sick. I had become so habituated to the evils of an humble condition and of pov- erty, that, like my companion, I scarcely any longer felt its burden; whereas the evils of abundance and of pride, which I have to sup- port as king, become, day by day, more weighty. I cannot turn back, now that I have known the charms of pleasure and of wealth. Their loss would be more painful to me than their absence
THE TRANSFORMATION. 189
is to the poor who know them not. If I could efface from my heart the remembrance of the past, I would renounce at once the throne, and would roam again the world with my old com- panion. Man's real happiness consists in health and in a joyous tranquillity of soul. He who possesses these two gifts may, without loss, renounce all the rest ; and that man alone can be called unhappy who wants one or other of those goods. Now, in my new position, I am in want of both these at once."
190 ORIENTAL TALES.
xxl.
THE DREAM OF ALMET.
ALMET, who kept the sacred lamp at the tomb of the Prophet, was kneeling at the eastern gate of the temple, and praying, when he saw before him a man clothed in precious garments and attended by a numerous retinue. The stranger approached with a slow step. ALMET rose and went to meet him, made his salutations, and asked if he had need of him.
" ALMET/' said the stranger, " thou seest before thee a man whom prosperity renders miserable. All my desires are fulfilled ; I can enjoy every pleasure upon earth, and never- theless I am not -happy ! I regret the time that is elapsed, because I have not profited by it ; I hope nothing from the future, because I know no real happiness ; and, notwithstanding, I tremble when I think of death. To pass
THE DREAM OF ALMET. 191
away as the circles which are traced upon the wave, to sleep beneath the veil of everlasting darkness, these are images from which my heart shrinks back in terror. If among the treasures of thy wisdom thou findest a precept which may procure contentment and self-reli- ance, communicate it to me, for it is to learn it that I am come."
ALMET listened to the stranger's complaint with a look of pity and affliction ; but the gaiety of his spirit soon returned. He lifted his hands toward Heaven, and said :
" Stranger, the Prophet has instructed me on what thou desirest to know. Thou shalt hear his wisdom from my mouth.
" One day, while the sun was setting, I was seated alone and pensive in the court of the temple, contemplating the streets of the city, where were moving to and fro, like the waves of the sea, a multitude without number, of pil- grims from all nations. Seeing the eagernesp with which the rich pursued their interests, and the laborious patience with which the poor sup- ported their burdens, my heart was afflicted.
192 ORIENTAL TALES.
" ' Poor mortals,' said I, ' why are you so occupied? You seek happiness. But who among you shall find it? Can habits of silk and purple procure contentment? Can the lustre of diamonds occupy the heart ? What superior power has dazzled your eyes, yours whom one sees pursuing incessantly an illusive splendor, which removes further and further from you, in proportion as you think you are nearing it ? Which is the happier, the poor or the rich? What joy is there, what pleasure, wherein one finds true happiness? All is a dream, all is illusion ! Neither wisdom nor riches make us happy. We are the sport of our passions until the moment when the great sea engulfs us like all other transitory things.'
"I thought thus, and sighed, when I felt myself touched by a strange hand. The streets of the holy city disappeared ; methought I was on the summit of a lofty rock ; and I saw at my side a young man clothed in white raiment.
" ' ALMET,' said he, < I am ASSORAN, the mes- senger of good counsel. I know that thou hast consecrated thy life to wisdom and to peaceful
THE DREAM OF ALMET. 193
meditations, in order to preserve thy brethren from the ways of error; but now thou hast wandered thyself. Therefore arise, 'look, and reflect more sagely.'
" I raised my eyes, and beheld delightful fields. They were beautiful as the gardens of Paradise, but of small extent. They were crossed in their midst by a verdant path, which terminated at the west in a desert, on the ex- treme edge whereof reigned a thick obscurity that stopped the view. Trees of every sort, bear- ing fruits, shadowed the path, and jocund birds sang among their branches. On the turf grew variegated flowers. They tilled with their sweet odors the air that caressed them. On one side, a limpid stream rolled its waters over sands of gold which sparkled through the waves ; on the other, might be distinguished springs, grot- toes, and cascades, which in alternation adorned the foot of a hill, whose soft declivity left ex- posed to light the bottom of the valley.
" My looks fastened with delight on these charming meadows ; when I saw a man richly dressed descend the green path, and move on-
134 ORIENTAL TALES.
ward with a slow step and pensive mien. His eyes were fixed upon the earth, his arms were crossed upon his breast, and his visage expressed discontent and grief. A numerous retinue, that walked behind him, appeared ready to execute his orders on the least sign. One presented him luscious fruits, another a cup of gold ; but he ate and drank with as much vexation, as if he were constrained to it. The fairest fruits, which he readily took, he returned with indif- ference when he had scarcely touched them with his lips. He laid himself beside the springs and cascades, as if he wished to lend his ear to their murmur and to the carol of the birds ; but he appeared to find no repose. He tossed from one side to another, arose, and continued his walk with the same indifference. Sometimes he would start like a man that i« frightened, or that feels a pang ; and when by chance his eyes fell upon the gloomy desert which stretched before him, he retreated several steps as if wishing to return ; but an invisible hand pushed him, despite himself, towards the desert, making him follow the green path.
THE DREAM OF ALMET. 196
" ' What means this vision ?' I cried, address- ing the angel.
" ' The book of nature is opened before thee,' he replied ; ' look, and become wise.'
" I turned my head again, and saw a narrow valley, between naked and precipitous rocks. There was in this sandy desert neither herb nor bush. The rays of the sun darted from the height of the rocks, and the only spring, which jetted from beneath a cliff, disappeared, at some distance from its source, in the burning sand. Saving some wild goats, which scaled the bro- ken precipices, there was nothing animated in the desert. But, towards the setting sun, it terminated in an agreeable and fertile plain, covered with trees and with houses. — My looks were still wandering over the scorched valleys, when I saw a man half-naked, and who carried on his shoulders a kid, climb painfully the rocks. The sharp flint took the skin from his hands and feet ; nevertheless he ascended with a gay heart, until he had attained a cavern, before which a woman and four children waited his coming. When the little ones saw him,
196 ORIENTAL TALES.
they uttered cries of joy, stretched their arms towards him, and ran to meet him at the de- clivity of the rock. They leaped gaily about him, and conducted him as in triumph to the cavern, where he threw to the ground his booty, and sat himself down with them in the shade. His visage was meager, and bronzed by the sun, but amiable. He laughed with the chil- dren, who, with their little hands, wiped the sweat from his brow ; and in his delight he appeared to have forgotten the pains he had endured. Sometimes he turned his eyes with satisfaction on the delicious fields before him in the distance ; he also pointed them out to his children, as the abode of joy and tranquillity. Yet, I could not discover, either in his gestures or in his looks, a single sign that this fair per- spective made him disdain his cavern.
" I had my eyes still fixed upon this man, whose aspect filled me with delight — for he appeared happy in the most frightful of soli- tudes— when the angel said to me :
" Grave in thy heart, ALMET, what thou hast seen. Contentment and hope are the offspring
THE DREAM OF ALMET. 197
of love. He who labors not to rtnder others happy will not himself be happy. Misery will torm ent him in the midst of abundance. The idlei whom thou sawest in those delightful fields may serve thee for example. He does nothing for others ; he lives but for himself, taking his companions for slaves that are forced to labor in his stead. Therefore he expe- riences no pleasure. He hears not the song of the birds, he sees not the beauty of the flowers, he feels not the pleasant air which surrounds him. He regards with fright the sombre desert which is spread before him, because he is per- suaded of his nothingness and unworthiness. For how can he believe, in his cold egotism, that he is worthy of reward ? must he not ex- pect from that justice, whose laws are written on the human heart, a severe judgment?
" ' That poor man, on the contrary, labors for his wife and children. The love which warms his heart renders him strong and inspires him with courage. He bears his burden with pleasure ; for the joy of his family is for him a sufficient recompense. The love which sacri-
198 ORIENTAL TALES.
fices itself for others feels its OWD worthiness ; it expects from justice the reward of its good deeds; but it desires for others also what it hopes for itself. Therefore is it that the poor man waits patiently the future, without think- ing that his present state, which he shares with those he loves, is painful.
" * Thus has the Eternal Wisdom accorded to mankind the means of creating for themselves either happiness or misery. The idle and the selfish, who breathe but for their own pleasure and for vanity, will never escape discontent and despair, while, on the contrary, the good father in the midst of his children, the good king in the midst of his people, will never be without joy. They will never despair of a better future.'
" As the celestial messenger thus spoke, the dream vanished. I awoke and saw myself alone in the court of the temple. The sun had set. The inhabitants of the city were reposing from their toil. I returned to the temple, and reflected calmly, by the light of the sacred lamp, on what I had seen.
" In this manner, my son," continued ALMET,
I
THE DKfcAM OP ALMET. 199
still addressing the stranger, " was taught to me the true wisdom of life, not only for my advantage, but likewise for thine. Hitherto, thou hast lived only for thyself and thy own interest, and that is why thou didst not meet with real pleasure. Thou hadst no confidence in the future, because thy heart, that incorrupt- ible judge, told thee that thy actions were not worthy of recompense. Let the precept of the Prophet be not lost upon thee ; let it not be as rain which falleth on the rock ; but form the resolution to put it into practice. Be the father of thy family and of thy people ; let thy flocks clothe the naked; let thy fields nourish the hungry; protect the oppressed from injustice and violence. Love men, and labor for their good ; and thou wilt find contentment and hope. For never did enter into the tender heart of a father that desolating idea, which makes us consider ourselves and others as the waves of the sea."
ALMET, whose cheeks began to redden, re- entered the temple; and the stranger went away in peace.
• *
200 ORIENTAL TALES
TTTT.
THE VISION OF BOSSALDAB.
BOSSALDAB, Sultan of Egypt, had an only eon, named ABORAM. He loved this son as an old man loves his life, during which he hopes to profit by the labors of his youth. He gathered together- great treasures, made himself the master of many neighboring countries, and labored, day and night, to leave to this darling son a great empire and a brilliant throne. His power was almost at its height, when the young man, who was to inherit it, was, while hunting, shot through the heart by an unlucky arrow. He died instantly.
BOSSALDAB was inconsolable. He tore his beard, disfigiired his face, and bedewed the body of his son with burning tears. His lamen- tations reached to the most distant rocks ; but they did not recall the young man to life. His
THE VISION OF BOSSALDAB. 201
servants came to console him ; but lie heeded them not. He cursed his palace, his kingdom, and himself; he hid himself in a dark cavern of the forest. There, stretched in the dust, and uttering loud cries of despair, he accused Providence of injustice.
"Why am I become master of so many countries and of so much wealth,'* he exclaimed, " if my only son was doomed to perish in the flower of his age? No, there is no God that loves mankind ! The deity takes a pleasure in tormenting his poor creatures, and in destroy- ing the happiness which they have built up with so much pains."
He passed thus, in a savage despair, three days without eating or drinking. His strength was exhausted ; he lay feeble on the ground, waiting impatiently for death to terminate his sufferings, when suddenly a great light shone around him. He lifted his eyes, and saw before him a young man girt with an azure robe, his temples orna- mented with a crown of lilies. The young man touched, with a green bough which he held in his hand, the forehead of the Sultan. A new
202 ORIENTAL TALES.
life ran through all his veins ; his heart was strengthened. He arose, and regarded the messenger of Heaven in silence.
" BOSSALDAB," said the latter, " I am KALOCK, the Angel of Peace, and I am sent to advise thee. Come, and follow me."
He took him by the hand, led him to a lofty mountain, placed him on the highest rock, and said : " Look down into the valley."
BOSSALDAB looked, and saw a desert isle. The waves of the sea beat against the strand with fury, and had just flung thereon a shipwrecked man entirely naked. The unhappy creature held in one of his hands a box of diamonds ; with the other, he endeavored to drag himself up a rock. He was about to succeed ; his joy- ous movements announced his hope to find an inhabited country; but when, with a last effort, he had reached the summit, he saw before him a desert of sand, and he appeared to be stiffened with terror. He flung his diamonds to the ground, wrung his hands, uttered great cries, and then began to traverse the plain to find aliments. But there was there neither tree nor
THE VISION OF BOSSALDAB. 203
shrub. The sun arose and set four times, yet he had found not a single wild berry, nor even the leaf of a tree to appease his hunger. Pale and exhausted, he laid himself at last upon the rocks of the beach, and waited death.
" Alas !" said BOSSALDAB, addressing the angel, " be touched with pity, nor suffer an unhappy wretch to perish so miserably."
" Be tranquil," replied the angel, " and pay attention to what thou art about to see."
The Sultan directed his regards anew, and distinguished a vessel which was approaching the isle. The famished man perceived the bark ; he regained his courage, he raised him- self with vivacity, stretched out his arms, and made a sign to the people of the ship. Seeing him on the rocks, they advanced towards him. He threw himself at the feet of the master, declared his misery, and promised him the half of his jewels, if he would save him. When the master of the vessel saw the precious stones, he made a sign to his companions. They bound the miserable man, hand and foot, took from him his jewels, left him fettered
204 /*•* ORIENTAL TALES.
on the shore, and departed joyous with their plunder.
" Oh ! son of Heaven," cried BOSSALDAB in grief, " canst thou behold with indifference and endure that crime ? See ! those wretches are sailing off. and they leave the man to die of hunger, after having robbed him I"
" Look once more," said the angel. " The vessel of the criminals has just struck upon a rock. Hearest thou their cries ? Not one of them shall be saved. Be no longer so rash as to censure the ways of Providence. The man thou pitiest shall be rescued, though it be not in the manner thou didst wish. Providence has more than one means of preserving those in whom it takes an interest. That man was covetous, and possessed more than he needed ; and his cupidity made him put tb sea to gain still more. Providence has conducted him to this desert, in order to soften the hardness of his heart, and to render beneficent his selfish hand. Happy he who allows himself to be instructed by misfortune ! But now, turn thy head, and see a new apparition."
THE VISION OF BOSSALDAB. 205
BOSSALDAB turned his head, and looked from the summit of the rock. The sea had disap- peared, and its deeps were changed into a nourishing plain. The eyes of BOSSALDAB were still fixed on its lovely fields, when a magnifi- cent palace of marble rose before him. The ivory doors expanded, and displayed a royal throne adorned with gold and diamonds. There were immense riches heaped up on both sides of the throne — which was surrounded by the princes of the land and by ambassadors from foreign parts, in an humble posture. He saw the princes take the oath of fidelity to the young king seated on the throne. And that king was ABORAM, the son of BOSSALDAB.
" Great Allah !" cried the Sultan, « 'tis my son ! Oh ! permit me to go to him."
" Stay," said the angel ; " it is an empty image, by which I merely desire to show thee the folly of thy past life and of thy despair.
" Look once more, and examine it with at. tention."
The homage finished with a banquet. After which the young king caused to be distributed
206 ORIENTAL TALES.
to his guests the treasures heaped about them. In a short time disappeared the riches which the most sordid avarice had taken so many years to collect together. Scarcely were the princes adorned with the diamonds of their sovereign, when they revolted, in pride and presumption, against him. Four new thrones arose upon the ruins of the old. They tied with cords the son of BOSSALDAB, who had become intoxicated during a banquet, and threw him into a dungeon, where, after long suffering, he received his death from the hands of a slave.
The Sultan turned away his eyes.
"Alas!" he cried, "it is enough! it is enough !"
"Humility and patience," said the angel, " would have spared thee this sad vision."
" I have sinned," replied BOSSALDAB, " since I have so bitterly murmured against that des- tiny which removed my son in the flower of his age, and which has saved him from a crowd of evils that would otherwise have befallen him."
" Yes," said the angel, " happy is he whom a premature death removes from this earth!
THE VISION OF BOSSALDAB. 20T
Go, BOSSALDAB, and support thy troubles with patience. The earthly labors of man are tran- sitory; his proud edifices crumble under the weight of a few brief years. Posterity mocks to scorn the names of the conqueror and the avaricious, whilst it blesses those of the benefi- cent."
Thus spoke the Angel of Peace : he spread his wings and soared into the air. The noise of his flight was as the roar of a waterfall. The Sultan awoke. He was lying in the cavern of the forest, his face upon the earth. He arose, returned to his palace, and sought to heal, by a peaceful reign, by justice and a beneficent wisdom, the wounds he had inflicted on his people by his avarice and thirst of conquest.
208 OKIENTAL TALES.
XXHL
THE BEST PATKIMOlSrY.
THE King of Egypt and the Emperer of Con- stantinople had made upon each other, for some time, sanguinary wars. At last, they grew tired of carnage and devastation, renounced their discord, and concluded peace. To con- firm their reconciliation, they made a double marriage between their children; each gave his son in wedlock to the daughter of the other. From that time, the fathers them- selves became close friends. Neither of them undertook an affair, however inconsiderable, without consulting the other, and if there was between them any germ of discontent, they settled the difficulty amicably. One day the Sultan of Egypt wrote to the Emperor of Con- stantinople :
" Nothing can be dearer to a father than the
THE BEST PATRIMONY. 209
happiness of his children, in whom he lives even after his death. Every thing else of which he is master will be taken from him after a few years ; but a happy progeny is a tree that will flourish forever on his tomb. Penetrated with this truth, I have striven to amass for my son treasures, wherewith kings obtain glory and prosperity. I am astonished that thou dost not follow my example, and that thou dost not endeavor to procure for thy son a happy reign."
The Emperor answered him :
" The wise man does not place his confidence in the goods of this earth, goods that are scat- tered by folly, and which a thousand accidents may cause to vanish in a few short days. I strive to amass for my son treasures such as no terrestrial power can take from him, and by means whereof he may procure himself enjoy- ments of every kind. I mean to say, that I have formed his heart for virtue and enriched his reason with useful knowledge."
210 ORIENTAL TALES.
.XXIV.
QUEEN AMBEKBOAH.
I, SINEDDIN, King of the Great Island, wiRh to my brother mortals peace and safety. I was twenty years old when my father ScnoR-PooLU died,