But the servant said: “Your Majesty is dreaming; you are a King, and a very great King.”
On this Abul got up, and hearing the strains of music, he was so delighted at his lucky position that he began to dance about the room, while the King, who was peeping from a doorway, stood and laughed so much that he was almost choked. At last, being unable to restrain himself longer, he called out: “O Abul, do you wish to kill me with laughter?”
On this Abul discovered that the King had been playing a practical joke on him, and he said: “O King, you have given me much misery.”
“Have I?” said the King. “Well, as much misery as I have given you, so much pleasure shall you now have;” and he gave him a present of heaps of money and a beautiful wife, sending him away with the assurance that he would never be poor any more.
Very soon Abul ran through all his money, and, hoping to get some more from the King, planned with his wife to pay another visit to the Palace.
Then he went to the King and, crying and wringing his hands, said: “O King, my wife is dead.”
The King, much shocked and grieved, gave him a than[1] of cloth and a thousand rupees, and told him to go and bury his wife.
In the meantime his wife had gone to the Queen’s apartments, and there, throwing herself on her face, she wept and said: “O Queen, my husband is dead, and I am most unhappy!”
The Queen, deeply grieved, gave her a thousand rupees and a than of cloth, saying: “Go, bury thy dead.”
Abul and his wife were now most happy, and set to work to make themselves clothes with the new cloth they had received.