The next day the grand vizier executed his commission. El Kattab was alarmed when he heard that his presence was required at the palace. He was led into the great hall where the divan usually assembled; but there the attendants left him quite alone. He reviewed the whole of his past life, to see if he had sinned in any way, so as to bring on him the displeasure of the caliph; for he knew that Haroun al Raschid often, in a mysterious manner, discovered the faults of his subjects, and punished them accordingly. But he could not call to mind any deed of which he felt ashamed, nor any that deserved punishment. Whilst he was thus meditating, a curtain was drawn back, and the caliph entered, followed by his vizier and his chamberlain. El Kattab rose from the ground, and bowed his head down to the carpet on which the caliph stood.
"El Kattab," said the caliph, "a heavy weight of grief seems to oppress you; and by the anxiety which your neighbours manifest to show respect for your sorrow, I must consider you as a man of worth: I wish then to know the cause of your despondency; have you any objection to inform me of it before these two witnesses, or would you rather confide to me alone the reason of your tears?"
"Ruler of the faithful," answered El Kattab, "sorrow is great and deep in my soul; but still the cause of it is unworthy to distract for a moment the attention of the caliph from the cares of his kingdom."
The caliph replied, "That which fills the heart of the meanest of my subjects with such grief that it consumes his life, is not unworthy of my care. If I am careful for my whole kingdom, this care none the less extends to each individual; and, if I am careful for one, this one is a member of the whole, and thus my care is not lost. But speak, what is the cause of your affliction?"
El Kattab then recounted the mysterious disappearance of his son; how he had sought for him every where, and how all his messengers had returned home without the least trace of him. "I must therefore weep for him as one that is dead,"—thus he ended his relation; "and in tears perhaps my sorrow might expend itself, if at the same time a spark of hope did not live in my heart, that possibly he is still alive: but ah! where? This spark of hope keeps the wound in the father's heart always open."
"You have, indeed, real cause for grief," answered the caliph, "and I comprehend that the uncertainty of your son's fate must be as terrible to bear, as would be the mournful certainty of his death. You did wrong in not applying to me before; my power extends not only over believers, but also into foreign lands: other kings and rulers I have as my servants, whose eyes see for me, whose ears hear for me, and whose hands perform what is necessary in order to do my pleasure. That which was not possible to yourself, your friends, and your servants to accomplish, may perhaps prove easy for me. Now go home, and believe that you shall obtain news of your son, if he live on the earth, in any land where my power can reach."
With these words he dismissed him, after he had first inquired the marks by which his lost son might be recognised.
When El Kattab was sitting again with his friend Salek in the evening, he related to him the gracious and comforting words of the caliph. Salek perceived that hope was revived in his friend's heart, and that he confidently trusted to find his son. He thought it his duty, therefore, to damp somewhat this hope, and said, "Beloved friend, I have once heard a speech, which sunk deeply in my memory: it is, 'Trust not in princes; they are but men.' In truth, the mightiest on earth are subject to destiny. If the caliph have influence in distant lands, it must still be within a comparatively confined and narrow limit; whilst what is in the farthest regions of the earth, as well as what is but a span distant, are all equally under the control of all-governing fate, even from the meanest slave to the ruler of the faithful."
Haroun al Raschid meanwhile resolved to do all he could to fulfil the hope he had raised in El Kattab's heart. He gave a commission to all his servants in the kingdom, high and low, and to his ambassadors in the neighbouring kingdoms, and even sent into distant lands, with the princes of which he was on terms of friendship, at the same time despatching messengers with the charge to search for Medjeddin with all diligence, giving them a description by which they might recognise him if they found him. But week after week, and month after month passed away; even a whole year elapsed, without any intelligence being received either of the life or death of the lost one. So that all hope of finding him deserted the father for ever.
Medjeddin, meantime, had not perished—none of the accidents suggested by his father's advisers had befallen him; he still lived, but in such complete concealment that it was impossible for any one to discover him. He had followed the snow-white bird till evening, without clearly knowing why: he was induced to think he could catch the curious creature, particularly as it flew at such a moderate height from the ground, and at the same time so slowly. The tardiness of its flight made him conjecture that it must have hurt one of its wings; several times he succeeded in getting quite close to it, but just as he stretched out his hand to seize it, the bird again raised its wings, and flew a little in advance. Medjeddin now felt himself tired, and would have given up the pursuit, but the bird also seemed fatigued; he approached it, but again the bird flew a little farther off. In this chase he climbed a hill, and soon after found himself in a narrow meadow-valley, down which he ran; twilight came, but the snow-white colour of the bird still lighted him on. At last the pursued bird perched in a thicket; he hastened to it, but when he closed his hand to seize his prisoner, it flew away, leaving only one of its tail-feathers tightly grasped in his hand: still he saw it through the twilight flying before him, and still he hastened after it. The bird seemed now to quicken its pace; but as he had so nearly caught it once, he continued the pursuit with more eagerness; he ran through the high grass, with his strained sight fixed on this glimmering white object, he saw nothing else. Thus he came unexpectedly on a small but deep pool of water, which lay across his path; he jumped in, swam across, and tried to climb the other side, but it was so steep that he fell in with some of the crumbling earth: the water closed over his head, and he lost all consciousness. When he came to himself, he found himself lying on the turf, and a tall, grey-headed man of strange appearance by him, clothed in a long black robe reaching to his ancles, and fastened by a glittering girdle of a fiery colour. Instead of a turban, he wore a high pointed cap on his head, with a tassel of the same hue as the girdle.