He now addresses himself seriously to the solution of the Second Question of Husn Bánú, but he has many wondrous experiences before he comes at length to the bank of a large river, on which is a lofty mansion of stone, and over the door is written the motto: “Do good, and cast it on the water.” Ushered by attendants into the house, Hatim sees a venerable man of a hundred years seated upon a throne, who receives him with great courtesy and causes him to be supplied with refreshments. When Hatim asks the meaning of the motto over the door, the old man relates his history: In his youth he was a great robber, yet every day he made two large loaves mixed with sweet oil and sugar, which he threw into the river, saying: “This I give away, to propitiate Heaven.” One day, continues the old robber, “I was seized with a sickness and I thought a man grasped me by the hand and pointing to the infernal regions said: ‘There is the place destined for thee.’ But two youths, divinely fair, came up and laid hold of me, saying: ‘We will not permit this man to be cast into hell, sinful though he has been. His future state is in Paradise, and thither let us carry him.’” They conveyed him accordingly to the regions of bliss, and an angel of exalted rank telling them that he had a hundred years yet to live, they brought him back to his house, and explained that they were the two loaves he was wont to cast into the water for fishes to feed on. His health was at once restored and he made two loaves as before. When he went to cast them into the water he found a hundred dínars, which he took up and carried to the village, where he caused it to be proclaimed that such a sum of money had been found, but no one came to claim it. Next day when he went to the river with the two loaves he found another hundred dínars, and this continued till the eve of the eleventh day, when a man appeared to him in the visions of the night and said: “Servant of the Almighty, thy two loaves have pleaded thy cause in heaven: the merciful Creator has forgiven thy sins. The dínars which thou receivest are for thy subsistence, and what is superfluous do thou bestow in charity.” Since then the old robber had built that mansion and written the motto over the door, and every day when he went to throw the loaves into the river he found a hundred dínars.[264]
Hatim returns with this story to Husn Bánú, and she forthwith despatches him on his Third Adventure: “There is a man who constantly cries: ‘Injure no one; if you do, evil will overtake you.’ Find out where that man lives, what injury he has done, and what evil has overtaken him.” After having performed a difficult task on behalf of a despairing lover whom he met on his way, Hatim at length, aided by a band of fairy troops, arrives at the outskirts of Himyar, where he hears a voice crying these words, and discovers a blind man confined in a cage, which is suspended from a branch of a tree. Hatim having promised to mend his condition and relieve him, the blind man related his history, as follows:
“I am by occupation a merchant, and my name is Hamír. When I became of age, my father had finished the building of this city, and he called the same after my name. Shortly after my father departed on a sea voyage and left me in charge of the city. I was a free-hearted and social young man, and so in a short time expended all the property left under my care by my father. Thus I became surrounded with poverty and want; and as I knew that my father had hidden treasures somewhere in his house I resolved to discover them if possible. I searched everywhere, but found nothing; and, to complete my woe, I received the news of my father’s death, the ship in which he sailed being wrecked.
“One day as I was sauntering, mournful and dejected, through the bazár, I espied a learned man who cried out: ‘If any one has lost his money by theft or otherwise, my knowledge of the occult sciences enables me to recover the same, but on condition that I receive one fourth of the amount.’ When I heard this seasonable proclamation, I immediately approached the man of science, and stated to him my sad condition and how I had been reduced from affluence to poverty. The sage undertook to restore my wealth, and above all to discover the treasures concealed in my father’s house. I conducted him to the house and showed him every apartment, which he carefully examined one after another. At length by his art he discovered the stores we were in search of; and when I saw the gold and silver and other valuables, which exceeded calculation, the demon of fraud entered my heart, and I refused to fulfil my promise of giving a fourth of the property to the man of wisdom. I offered him only a few small pieces of silver; instead of accepting which, he stood for a few moments in silent meditation, and with a look of scorn said: ‘Do I thus receive the fourth part of your treasure, which you agreed to give me? Base man, of what perjury are you guilty!’ On hearing this I became enraged, and having struck him several blows on the face I expelled him from my house. In a few days, however, he returned, and so far ingratiated himself into my confidence, that we became intimate friends; and night and day he displayed before my sight the various hidden treasures contained within the bowels of the earth. One day I asked him to instruct me in this wonderful science, to which he answered that no instruction was requisite. ‘Here,’ said he, ‘is a composition of surma, and whoever applies the same to his eyes, to him will all the wealth of this world become visible.’[265] ‘Most learned sir,’ I replied, ‘if you will anoint my eyes with this substance, I promise to share with you the half of all such treasures as I may discover.’ ‘I agree,’ said my friend: ‘meanwhile let us retire to the desert, where we shall be free from interruption.’
“We immediately set out, and when we arrived here I was surprised at seeing this cage, and asked my companion whose it was. I received for answer, that it belonged to no one. In short, we both sat down at the foot of this tree, and the sage, having produced the surma from his pocket, began to apply it to my eyes. But, alas! no sooner had he applied this composition than I became totally deprived of sight. In a voice of sorrow I asked him why he had thus treated me, and he replied: ‘Such is the reward of treachery; and if you wish to recover your sight, you must for some time undergo penance in this cage. You must utter no complaint and you shall exclaim from time to time: “Do no evil to any one; if you do, evil will befall you.”’ I entreated the sage to relieve me, saying: ‘You are a mere mortal like myself, and dare you thus torment a fellow-creature? How will you account for your deeds to the Supreme Judge?’ He answered: ‘This is the reward of your treachery.’ Seeing him inexorable, I begged of him to inform me when and how my sight was to be restored; and he told me, that a noble youth should one day visit me, and to him I was to make known my condition, and farther state that in the desert of Himyar there is a certain herb called the Flower of Light, which the youth was to procure and apply to my eyes, by means of which my sight should be restored.
“It is now three years since he left me in this prison, which, though quite open, I cannot quit. Were I to attempt to leave my confinement, I should feel the most excruciating pain in my limbs, so as not to have the power of moving, and thus I am compelled to remain. One day, shortly after my companion left me, I reflected that I could do nothing for myself while I continued like a bird in this cage, and accordingly resolved to quit it at all hazards; but the moment I was outside of it the pain that seized my whole body almost killed me. I immediately returned to my prison, and have since that time resigned myself to my fate, exclaiming at stated times the words which have attracted your attention. Many people have passed by me, but on learning my condition they left me as they found me.”
When the man in the cage had ended his story, Hatim bade him be of good cheer, for he would at once endeavour to relieve him. By the aid of the fairies who had conducted him thither and now carry him through the air for the space of seven days, he arrives in the desert where the Flowers of Light shine brilliant as lamps on a festival night, diffusing the sweetest perfume far and wide; and, recking naught for the serpents, scorpions, and other beasts of prey which infest the place (for he was guarded by a powerful talisman), he advances and plucks three of the largest and most brilliant flowers. Returning in the same manner as he had come, he reaches the spot where the blind man Hamír is imprisoned. Taking down the cage, he releases the wretched man, compresses the stalk of the flower so that the juice should drop upon his sightless eyeballs, and when this has been repeated three times Hamír opens his eyes, and, seeing Hatim, falls prostrate at his feet with a profusion of thanks.
The Fourth Adventure is: “Who is the man that has this motto over his door: ‘He who speaks the truth is always tranquil’; wherein has he spoken the truth, and what degree of tranquility does he enjoy in consequence?” Passing through regions of enchantment, Hatim then comes to a city, and discovers the motto written above the gate of a splendid mansion. He enters and is received graciously by an old man, who entertains him hospitably. Next day he relates his story: He is eight hundred years old. In youth he was a great gambler, and having lost all his substance he became a robber. One night he broke into the king’s palace, entered one of the chambers, where the daughter of the king was sleeping, and seizing all her jewels and a golden lamp that burned beside her he made his escape. He fled to a desert, where he found a gang of thieves dividing their plunder, to whom he showed his own booty, and their avarice was aroused so that they were proceeding to take it from him by force, when a tremendous voice was heard close by, at which they ran off in different directions. Presently a figure appeared before him and demanded: “Who art thou?” He told his story. “’Tis well for thee,” said the figure, “that thou hast related the whole truth; therefore I forgive thy crime, and leave the treasure to thy enjoyment. But swear never to gamble again.” He took the required oath. “Well, keep thy oath, and the years of thy life shall reach nine hundred.” Returning to the city with his plunder, his comrades envied his prosperity, and reported him to the chief of the police, who brought him before the king, to whom he told the whole truth as to the source of his wealth, and the king pardoned him and gave him more gold. Then he wrote that motto over his door.
Hatim’s Fifth Adventure is to bring an account of Mount Nida, whence a voice from time to time proceeds, crying: “Come quickly!” Whereupon one of the citizens in the neighbourhood is seized with an uncontrollable frenzy, rushes away to the mountain and is seen no more. This strange occurrence Hatim learns is the manner in which the inhabitants taste of death: when the doomed person approached a rock it split asunder, and as soon as he had entered the opening it closed behind him and his soul quitted his body.
The Sixth Adventure is to procure Husn Bánú a pearl similar to one she already possesses, which is as large as a duck’s egg. Hatim learns from the conversation of a pair of Nitka birds that their species used to “lay” such pearls once in thirty years, but this faculty had ceased since the days of Solomon; that only two were on the face of the earth now (all others being at the bottom of the sea), one being in the possession of Husn Bánú, the other in the treasury of a fairy, who has an only daughter: he who can tell the history of that pearl (which Hatim has heard from the well-informed birds) shall have her in marriage and the pearl for her dowry. Needless to add that Hatim is successful in his quest, bestows the young fairy on her lover, who had been unable to comply with her father’s condition, and returns with the pearl to Husn Bánú.