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

of the adorers of fire approached; and a ship was fitted out for the fiery mountain as usual: the captain’s name was Behram, a great bigot to his religion. He loaded it with proper merchandize; and when it was ready to sail, put Assad in a chest, which was half full of goods, a few crevices being left between the boards to give him air.

Before the ship sailed, the grand vizier Amgiad, who had been told that the adorers of fire used to sacrifice a Mussulmaun every year on the fiery mountain, suspecting that Assad might have fallen into their hands, and be designed for a victim, resolved to search the ship in person. He ordered all the passengers and seamen to be brought upon deck, and commanded his men to search all over the ship, which they did, but Assad could not be found, he was so well concealed.

When the grand vizier had done searching the vessel, she sailed.

As soon as Behram was got out to sea, he ordered prince Assad to be taken out of the chest, and fettered, to secure him, lest he should throw himself into the sea in despair since he knew he was going to be sacrificed.

The wind was very favourable for a few days, after which there arose a furious storm. The vessel was driven out of her course, so that neither Behram nor his pilot knew where they were. They were afraid of being wrecked on the rocks, for in the violence of the storm they discovered land, and a dangerous shoal before them. Behram perceived that he was driven into the port and capital of queen Margiana, which occasioned him great mortification.

This queen Margiana was a devout professor of the Mahummedan faith, and a mortal enemy to the adorers of fire. She had banished all of them out of her dominions, and would not suffer their ships to touch at her ports.

It was no longer in the power of Behram to avoid putting into the harbour, for he had no alternative but to be dashed to pieces against the frightful rocks that lay off the shore. In this extremity he held a council with his pilot and seamen. “My lads,”

said he, “you see to what a necessity we are reduced. We must choose one of two things; either to resolve to be swallowed up by the waves, or put into queen Margiana’s port, whose hatred to all persons of our religion you well know. She will certainly seize our vessel and put us all to death, without mercy. I see but one way to escape her, which is, to take off the fetters from the Mussulmaun we have aboard, and dress him like a slave. When queen Margiana commands me to come before her, and asks what trade I follow, I will tell her I deal in slaves; that I have sold all I had, but one, whom I keep to be my clerk, because he can read and write. She will by this means see him, and he being handsome, and of her own religion, will have pity on him. No doubt she will then ask to buy him of me, and on this account will let us stay in the port till the weather is fair. If any of you have any thing else to propose that will be preferable, I am ready to attend to it.” The pilot and seamen applauded his judgment, and agreed to follow his advice.

Behram commanded prince Assad’s chains to be taken off, and had him neatly habited like a slave, as became one who was to pass for his clerk before the queen of the country. They had scarcely time to do this, before the ship drove into the port, and dropped anchor.

Queen Margiana’s palace was so near the sea, that her garden extended down to the shore. She saw the ship anchor, and sent to the captain to come to her, and the sooner to satisfy her curiosity waited for him in her garden.

Behram landed with prince Assad, whom he required to confirm what he had said of his being a slave, and his clerk. When he was introduced to the queen, he threw himself at her feet, and informed her of the necessity he was under to put into her port: that he dealt in slaves, and had sold all he had but one, who was Assad, whom he kept for his clerk.

The queen was taken with Assad from the moment she first saw him, and was extremely glad to hear that he was a slave; resolving to buy him, cost what he would. She asked Assad what was his name.

“Great queen,” he replied, with tears in his eyes, “does your majesty ask what my name was formerly, or what it is now?” The queen answered, “Have you two names then?” “Alas! I have,” said Assad: “I was once called Assad (most happy); and now my name is Motar” (devoted to be sacrificed).

Margiana not being able to comprehend the meaning of his answer, interpreted it to refer to his condition of a slave. “Since you are clerk to the captain,” said she, “no doubt you can write well; let me see your hand.”

Behram had furnished Assad with pen, ink, and paper, as a token of his office, that the queen might take him for what he designed she should.

The prince stepped a little aside, and wrote as follows, suitable to his wretched circumstances:

“The blind man avoids the ditch into which the clear-sighted falls. Fools advance themselves to honours, by discourses which signify nothing, while men of sense and eloquence live in poverty and contempt. The Mussulmaun with all his riches is miserable.

The infidel triumphs. We cannot hope things will be otherwise.

The Almighty has decreed it shall be so.”

Assad presented the paper to queen Margiana, who admired alike the moral of the sentences, and the goodness of the writing. She needed no more to have her heart inflamed, and to feel a sincere concern for his misfortunes. She had no sooner read the lines, than she addressed herself to Behram, saying, “Do which you will, either sell me this slave, or make me a present of him; perhaps it will turn most to your account to do the latter.”

Behram answered insolently, that he could neither give nor sell him; that he wanted his slave, and would keep him.

Queen Margiana, provoked at his rudeness, would not talk to him any more on the subject. She took the prince by the arm, and turned him before her to the palace, sending Behram word, that if he stayed the night in her port, she would confiscate his goods, and burn his ship. He was therefore forced to return to his vessel, and prepare to put to sea again, notwithstanding the tempest had not yet subsided.

Queen Margiana, on entering her palace, commanded supper to be got ready; and while it was providing, she ordered Assad to be brought into her apartment, where she bade him sit down. Assad would have excused himself: “It becomes not a slave,” said he, “to presume to this honour.”

“To a slave! “replied the queen: “you were so a moment ago; henceforward you are no more a slave. Sit down near me, and tell me the story of your life; for by what you wrote, and the insolence of that slave-merchant, I guess there is something extraordinary in your history.”

Prince Assad obeyed her; and sitting down, began thus: “Mighty queen, your majesty is not mistaken, in thinking there is something extraordinary in the story of my life: it is indeed more so than you can imagine. The ills, the incredible torments I have suffered, and the death to which I was devoted, and from which I am delivered by your royal generosity, will shew the greatness of my obligation to you, never to be forgotten. But before I enter into particulars of my miseries, which will strike horror into the hearts of all that hear them, I must trace the origin of them to its source.”

This preamble increased queen Margiana’s curiosity. The prince then told her of his royal birth; of his brother Amgiad, and their mutual friendship; of their mothers’ criminal passion, the cause of all their sufferings; of the king his father’s rage; how miraculously their lives were saved; how he had lost his brother; how he had been long imprisoned and tortured, and was devoted to be sacrificed on the fiery mountain.

When Assad had finished his recital’ the queen was more than ever enraged at the adorers of fire. “Prince,” said she, “though I have always had an aversion to the adorers of fire, yet hitherto I have had some humanity for them: but after their barbarous usage of you, and their execrable design to sacrifice you, I will henceforth wage perpetual war against them.”

She was proceeding, but supper being served in, she made prince Assad sit down at table with her, being charmed with his beauty and eloquence, and touched with a passion which she hoped soon to have an opportunity of making known to him “Prince,” said she, “we must make you amends for so many fasts and wretched meals, to which the pitiless adorers of fire made you submit; you must want nourishment after such sufferings.” With conversation of this kind she helped him at supper; and ordered him to drink a good deal of wine to recover his spirits; by which means he drank more than he could well bear.

The cloth being taken away, Assad having occasion to go out, took an opportunity when the queen did not observe him. He descended into the court, and seeing the garden-door open, went into it.

Being tempted by the pleasantness of the place, he walked there for some time. At last he came to a fountain, where he washed his face and hands to refresh himself, and lying down on the turf by the fountain, fell asleep.

Behram, to prevent the queen from executing her threats, had weighed anchor, vexed at the loss of Assad, by which he was disappointed of a most acceptable sacrifice. He comforted himself as well as he could, with the thoughts that the storm was over, and that a land breeze favoured his getting off the coast. As soon as he was towed out of the port by the help of his boat, before it was hoisted up into the ship again, “Stop, my lads,”

said he to the seamen, “do not come on board yet; I will give you some casks to fill with water, and wait for you.” Behram had observed, while he was talking to the queen in the garden, that there was a fountain at the end of it, near the port. “Go,” said he, “land before the palace-garden; the wall is not above breast high, you may easily get over; there is a basin in the middle of the garden, where you may fill all your barrels, and hand them aboard without difficulty.”

The sailors went ashore at the place he directed them to, and laying their casks on their shoulders easily got over the wall.

As they approached the basin, they perceived a man sleeping on the grass, and knew him to be Assad. They immediately divided themselves; and while some of the crew filled their barrels with as little noise as possible, others surrounded Assad, and watched to seize him if he should awake.

He slept on undisturbed, giving them time to fill all their casks; which they afterwards handed over the wall to others of the crew who waited to carry them aboard.

They next seized Assad, and conveyed him away, without giving him time to recollect himself. They got him over the wall into their boat with the casks, and rowed to the ship. When