When he was some days journey from Balsora, he sold his slave, resolving not to have a witness of his former poverty, nor of the source of his present riches. He bought another, and arrived without any obstacle at his mother’s, whom he would scarcely look upon, so much was he taken up with his treasure. His first care was to place the loads of his camels, and the candlestick, in the most private part of the house; and, in his impatience to feed his eyes, with his great opulence, he placed lights immediately in the candlestick: the twelve Dervises appearing, he gave each of them a blow with a cane with all his strength, lest he should be failing in the laws of the talisman: but he had not remarked, that Abounadar, when he struck them, had the cane in his left hand. Abdallah, by a natural motion, made use of his right; and the Dervises, instead of becoming heaps of riches, immediately drew from beneath their robes each a formidable club, with which they struck him almost dead, and disappeared, carrying with them all his treasures, the camels, the horse, the slave, and the candlestick.
Thus was Abdallah punished by poverty, and almost by death, for his unreasonable ambition, which perhaps might have been pardonable, if it had not been accompanied by an ingratitude as wicked as it was audacious, since he had not so much as the resource of being able to conceal his perfidies from the too piercing eyes of his benefactor.
FINIS.
Harrild, Printer, Eastcheap.