The Arabian Nights Entertainments, - [best autobiographies to read .txt] 📗

not make you uneasy, and to prevent your excuses, I repeat again, that I will positively have it to be so; you will soon know my reason. Go to your place, and continue to divert yourself. When I return again, and come to you in a slave’s habit, chide me for staying so long, do not be afraid even to strike me. I will wait upon you while you are at table till night; you shall sleep here, and so shall the lady, and tomorrow morning you may send her home with honour. I shall afterwards endeavour to do you more important services: go, and lose no time.” Amgiad would have made him an answer, but the master of the horse would not suffer him, forcing him to return to the lady. He had scarcely reentered the hall before Bahader’s friends, whom he had invited, arrived. Bahader excused himself for not entertaining them that day, telling them they would approve of his reason when they should be informed of it, which they should be in due time. When they were gone, he went and dressed himself in a slave’s habit.

Prince Amgiad returned to the lady much pleased at finding the house belonged to a man of quality, who had received him so courteously. When he sat down again, he said, “Madam, I beg a thousand pardons for my rudeness. I was vexed that my slave should tarry so long; the rascal shall pay for it when he comes: I will teach him to make me wait so for him.”

“Let not that trouble you,” said the lady. “The evil is his; if he is guilty of any faults, let him pay for it: but do not let us think of him, we will enjoy ourselves without him.”

They continued at the table with the more pleasure, as Amgiad was under no apprehensions of the consequence of the lady’s indiscretion in breaking open the door. The prince was now as merry as the lady: they said a thousand pleasant things, and drank more than they ate, till Bahader arrived in his disguise.

Bahader entered like a slave who feared his master’s displeasure for staying out when he had company with him. He fell down at his feet and kissed the ground, to implore his clemency; and when he had done, stood behind him with his hands across, waiting his commands.

“Sirrah,” said Amgiad, with a fierce tone, and angry look, “where have you been? What have you been doing, that you came no sooner?”

“My lord,” replied Bahader, “I ask your pardon; I was executing your orders, and did not think you would return home so early.”

“You are a rascal,” said Amgiad, “and I will break your bones, to teach you to lie, and disappoint me.” He then rose up, took a stick, and gave him two or three slight blows; after which he sat down again.

The lady was not satisfied with this chastisement. She also rose, took the stick, and fell upon Bahader so unmercifully, that the tears came into his eyes. Amgiad, offended to the last degree at the freedom she took, and that she should use one of the king’s chief officers so ill, called out to her in vain to forbear. “Let me alone,” said she “I will give him enough, and teach him to be absent so long another time.” She continued beating him with great fury, till Amgiad rose from the table, and forced the stick out of her hand which she did not relinquish without much struggling. When she found she could beat Bahader no longer, she sat down, railed at and cursed him.

Bahader wiped his eyes, and stood up to fill out wine When he saw they had done eating and drinking, he took away the cloth, cleared the hall, put every thing in its place; and night coming on, lighted up the lamps. Every time he came in, or went out, the lady muttered, threatened him, and gave him abusive language, to Amgiad’s great regret, who would have hindered her, but could not. When it was time for them to retire to bed, Bahader prepared one for them on the sofa, and withdrew into a chamber, where he laid himself down, and soon fell asleep, having been fatigued with his beating. Amgiad and the lady entertained one another for some time afterwards. The lady before she went to bed having occasion to go to another part of the house, passing through the vestibule, heard Bahader snore, and having seen a sabre hanging up in the hall, turned back, and said to Amgiad, “My lord, as you love me, do one thing for me.” “In what can I serve you?” asked the prince. “Oblige me so far as to take down this sabre and cut off your slave’s head.” Amgiad was astonished at such a proposal from a lady, and made no doubt but it was the wine she had drunk that induced her to make it. “Madam,” said he, “let us suffer him to rest, he is not worthy of your farther notice: I have beaten him, and you have beaten him: that ought to be sufficient; besides, I am in other respects well satisfied with him.”

“That shall not satisfy me,” replied the lady, in a violent passion; “the rascal shall die, if not by your hands, by mine.”

As she spoke, she took down the sabre from the place where it hung, drew it out of the scabbard, and prepared to execute her wicked design.

Amgiad met her in the vestibule, saying, “You shall be satisfied, madam, since you will have it so; but I should be sorry that any one besides myself should kill my slave.” When she had given him the sabre, “Come, follow me,” said he; “make no noise, lest we should awaken him.” They went into Bahader’s chamber, where Amgiad, instead of striking him, aimed his blow at the lady, and cut off her head, which fell upon Bahader.

Bahader was awakened by the head of the lady falling upon him. He was amazed to see Amgiad standing by him with a bloody sabre, and the body of the lady lying headless on the ground. The prince told him what had passed, and said, “I had no other way to prevent this furious woman from killing you, but to take away her life.” “My lord,” replied Bahader, full of gratitude, “persons of your rank and generosity are incapable of doing such a wicked action: as she desired of you. You are my deliverer, and I cannot sufficiently thank you.” After having embraced him, to evince the sense he entertained of his obligations to him, he said, “We must carry this corpse out before it is quite day; leave it to me, I will do it.” Amgiad would not consent to this, saying, “He would carry it away himself, since he had struck the blow.” Bahader replied, “You are a stranger in this city, and cannot do it so well as one who is acquainted with the place. I must do it, if for no other reason, yet for the safety of both of us, to prevent our being questioned about her death. Remain you here, and if I do not return before day, you may be sure the watch has seized me; and for fear of the worst, I will by writing give this house and furniture for your habitation.”

When he had written, signed, and delivered the paper to prince Amgiad, he put the lady’s body in a bag, head and all; laid it on his shoulder, and went out with it from one street to another, taking the way to the seaside. He had not proceeded far before he met one of the judges of the city, who was going the rounds in person. Bahader was stopped by the judge’s followers, who, opening the bag, found the body of a murdered lady, bundled up with the head. The judge, who knew the master of the horse notwithstanding his disguise, took him home to his house, and not daring to put him to death without telling the king, on account of his rank, carried him to court as soon as it was day. When the king had been informed by the judge of the crime Bahader had, as he believed from the circumstances, committed, he addressed himself to the master of the horse as follows: “It is thus then that thou murderess my subjects, to rob them, and then wouldst throw their dead bodies into the sea, to hide thy villainy? Let us get rid of him; execute him immediately.”

Innocent as Bahader was, he received sentence of death with resignation, and said not a word in his justification. The judge carried him to his house, and while the pale was preparing, sent a crier to publish throughout the city, that at noon the master of the horse was to be impaled for a murder.

Prince Amgiad, who had in vain expected Bahader’s return, was struck with consternation when he heard the crier publish the approaching execution of the master of the horse. “If,” said he to himself, “any one ought to die for the murder of such a wicked woman, it is I, and not Bahader; I will never suffer an innocent man to be punished for the guilty.” Without deliberating, he then hastened to the place of execution, whither the people were running from all parts.

When Amgiad saw the judge bringing Bahader to the pale, he went up to him, and said, “I am come to assure you, that the master of the horse, whom you are leading to execution, is wholly innocent of the lady’s death; I alone am guilty of the crime, if it be one, to have killed a detestable woman, who would have murdered Bahader.” He then related to him how it had happened.

The prince having informed the judge of the manner in which he had met her coming from the bath; how she had occasioned his going into the master of the horse’s pleasure-house, and all that had passed to the moment in which he was forced to cut off her head, to save Bahader’s life; the judge ordered execution to be stopped, and conducted Amgiad to the king, taking the master of the horse with them.

The king wished to hear the story from Amgiad himself; and the prince, the better to prove his own innocence and that of the master of the horse, embraced the opportunity to discover who he was, and what had driven him and his brother Assad to that city, with all the accidents that had befallen them, from their departure from the Isle of Ebene.

The prince having finished his account, the king said to him, “I rejoice that I have by this means been made acquainted with you; I not only give you your own life, and that of my master of the horse, whom I commend for his kindness to you, but I restore him to his office; and as for you, prince, I declare you my grand vizier, to make amends for your father’s unjust usage, though it is also excusable, and I permit you to employ all the authority with which I now invest you to find out prince Assad.”

Amgiad having thanked the king for the honour he had done him, on taking possession of his office of grand vizier used every possible means to find out the prince his brother. He ordered the common criers to promise a great reward to any who should discover him, or give any tidings of him. He sent men up and down the country to the same purpose; but in vain.

Assad in the meanwhile continued in the dungeon in chains; Bostama and Cavama, the cunning old conjuror’s daughters, treating him daily with the same cruelty and inhumanity as at first.

The solemn festival