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

when the report of the robbery spread through the city, and a great many of his friends and neighbours came to his house to express their concern for his misfortune; but were curious to know the particulars. He thanked them for their affection, and had at least the consolation, that he heard no one mention Schemselnihar. or the prince of Persia: which made him believe they were at their houses, or in some secure place.

When the jeweller was alone, his servants brought him something to eat, but he had no appetite. About noon one of his slaves came to tell him there was a man at the gate, whom he knew not, that desired to speak with him. The jeweller, not choosing to receive a stranger into his house, rose up, and went to speak to him.

“Though you do not know me,” said the man; “I know you, and I am come to talk to you about an important affair.” The jeweller desired him to come in. “No,” answered the stranger “if you please, rather take the trouble to go with me to your other house.” “How know you,” asked the jeweller, “that I have another house?” “I know very well,” answered the stranger; “follow me, and do not fear any thing: I have something to communicate which will please you.” The jeweller went immediately with him; and after he had considered by the way how the house they were going to had been robbed, he said to him that it was not fit to receive him.

When they were before the house, and the stranger saw the gate half broken down, he said to the jeweller, “I see you have told me the truth. I will conduct you to a place where we shall be better accommodated.” When he had thus spoken, he went on, and walked all the rest of the day without stopping. The jeweller being fatigued with his walk, vexed to see night approach, and that the stranger went on without telling him where he was going, began to lose his patience, when they came to a path which led to the Tigris. As soon as they reached the river, they embarked in a little boat, and went over. The stranger led the jeweller through a long street, where he had never been before; and after he had brought him through several by-streets, he stopped at a gate, which he opened. He made the jeweller go in before him, he then shut and bolted the gate, with a huge iron bolt, and conducted him to a chamber, where there were ten other men, all of them as great strangers to the jeweller as he who had brought him hither.

These ten men received him without much ceremony. They desired him to sit down, of which he had great need; for he was not only out of breath with walking so far, but his terror at finding himself with people whom he thought he had reason to fear would have disabled him from standing. They waited for their leader to go to supper, and as soon as he came it was served up. They washed their hands, obliged the jeweller to do the like, and to sit at table with them. After supper the men asked him, if he knew whom he spoke to? He answered, “No; and that he knew not the place he was in.” “Tell us your last night’s adventure,” said they to him, “and conceal nothing from us.” The jeweller, being astonished at this request, answered, “Gentlemen, it is probable you know it already.” “That is true,” replied they; “the young man and the young lady, who were at your house yesternight, told it us; but we would know it from your own mouth.” The jeweller needed no more to inform him that he spoke to the robbers who had broken into and plundered his house. “Gentlemen,” said he, “I am much troubled for that young man and lady; can you give me any tidings of them?”

Upon the jeweller’s inquiry of the thieves, if they knew any thing of the young man and the young lady, they answered, “Be not concerned for them, they are safe and well,” so saying, they shewed him two closets, where they assured him they were separately shut up. They added, “We are informed you alone know what relates to them, which we no sooner came to understand, but we shewed them all imaginable respect, and were so far from doing them any injury, that we treated them with all possible kindness on your account. We answer for the same,” proceeded they, “for your own person, you may put unlimited confidence in us.”

The jeweller being encouraged by this assurance, and overjoyed to hear that the prince of Persia and Schemselnihar were safe, resolved to engage the robbers yet farther in their interest. He commended them, flattered them, and gave them a thousand benedictions. “Gentlemen,” said he, “I must confess I have not the honour to know you, yet it is no small happiness to me that I am not wholly unknown to you; and I can never be sufficiently grateful for the favours which that knowledge has procured me at your hands. Not to mention your great humanity, I am fully persuaded now, that persons of your character are capable of keeping a secret faithfully, and none are so fit to undertake a great enterprise, which you can best bring to a good issue by your zeal, courage, and intrepidity. Confiding in these qualities, which are so much your due, I hesitate not to tell you my whole history, with that of those two persons you found in my house, with all the fidelity you desire me.”

After the jeweller had thus secured, as he thought, the confidence of the robbers, he made no scruple to relate to them the whole amour of the prince of Persia and Schemselnihar, from the beginning of it to the time he had received them into his house.

The robbers were greatly astonished at all the particulars they heard, and could not forbear exclaiming, “How! is it possible that the young man should be the illustrious Ali Ebn Becar, prince of Persia, and the young lady the fair and celebrated beauty Schemselnihar?” The jeweller assured them nothing was more certain, and that they need not think it strange, that persons of so distinguished a character should wish not to be known.

Upon this assurance of their quality, the robbers went immediately, one after another, and threw themselves at their feet, imploring their pardon, and protesting that nothing of the kind would have happened to them, had they been informed of the quality of their persons before they broke into the house; and that they would by their future conduct endeavour to make amends for the crime they had thus ignorantly committed. Then turning to the jeweller, they told him, they were heartily sorry they could not restore to him all that had been taken from him, part of it being no longer in their possession. but as for what remained, if he would content himself with his plate, it should be forthwith put into his hand.

The jeweller was overjoyed at the favour done him, and after the robbers had delivered to him the plate, they required of the prince, Schemselnihar, and him, to promise them upon oath, that they would not betray them, and they would carry them to a place whence they might easily return to their respective homes. The prince, Schemselnihar, and the jeweller, replied, that they might rely on their words, but since they desired an oath of them, they solemnly swore not to discover them. The thieves, satisfied with this, immediately went out with them.

On the way, the jeweller, uneasy at not seeing the confidant and the two slaves, came up to Schemselnihar, and begged her to inform him what was become of them. She answered, she knew nothing of them, and that all she could tell him was, that she was carried away from his house, ferried over the river, and brought to the place from whence they were just come.

Schemselnihar and the jeweller had no farther conversation; they let the robbers conduit them with the prince to the river’s side, when the robbers immediately took boat, and carried them over to the opposite bank.

While the prince, Schemselnihar, and the jeweller were landing, they heard the noise of the horse patrol coming towards them, just as the boat had conveyed the robbers back.

The commander of the brigade demanded of the prince, Schemselnihar, and the jeweller, who they were, and whence they had come so late? Frightened as they were, and apprehensive of saying any thing that might prejudice them, they could not speak; but at length it was necessary they should. The jeweller’s mind being most at ease, he said, “Sir, I can assure you, we are respectable people of the city. The persons who have just landed us, and are now returned to the other side of the water, are thieves, who having last night broke open the house where we were, pillaged it, and afterwards carried us to their quarters, whence by fair words, we prevailed on them to let us have our liberty; and they brought us hither. They have restored us part of the booty they had taken from us.” At which words he shewed the parcel of plate he had recovered.

The commander, not satisfied with what the jeweller had told him, came up to him and the prince of Persia, and looking steadfastly at them, said, “Tell me truly, who is this lady? How came you to know her?”

These questions embarrassed them so much that neither of them could answer; till at length Schemselnihar extricated them from their difficulty, and taking the commander aside, told him who she was; which he no sooner heard, than he alighted with expressions of great respect and politeness, and ordered his men to bring two boats.

When the boats were come, he put Schemselnihar into one, and the prince of Persia and the jeweller into the other, with two of his people in each boat; with orders to accompany each of them whithersoever they were bound. The boats took different routes, but we shall at present speak only of that which contained the prince and the jeweller.

The prince, to save his guides trouble, bade them land the jeweller at his house, naming the place. The guide, by this direction, stopped just before the caliph’s palace, which put both him and the jeweller into great alarm; for although they had heard the commander’s orders to his men, they could not help imagining they were to be delivered up to the guard, to be brought before the caliph next morning.

This nevertheless was not the intention of the guides. For after they had landed them, they, by their master’s command, recommended them to an officer of the caliph’s guard who assigned them two soldiers to conduct them by land to the prince’s house, which was at some distance from the river. They arrived there, but so tired and weary that they could hardly move.

The prince being come home, with the fatigue of his journey, and this misadventure to himself and Schemselnihar, which deprived him of all hope of ever seeing her more, fell into a swoon on his sofa. While the greatest part of his servants were endeavoring to recover him, the rest gathered about the jeweller, and begged him to tell them what had happened to the prince their lord, whose absence had occasioned them such inexpressible uneasiness.

While the greatest part of the prince’s domestics were endeavouring to recover him from his swoon, others of them got about the jeweller, desiring to know what had happened to their lord. The jeweller, who took care to discover nothing that was not proper for them