"As I journeyed yesterday, and was arrived within a league of the city of Delhi, I turned me towards a place walled round, which I supposed was a repository for the dead; and finding the gate open, I entered into it, intending to shelter myself for a few minutes against the scorching sun.
"As I entered I perceived at one end a stone sepulchre, whose mouth was opened, and the stone rolled from it. Surprised at the sight, I walked forward to the vault, and heard within the voices of several persons. At this I was in doubt whether to proceed or retire, supposing that some robbers had taken up their residence there.
"In the midst of my confusion, a young man with a turban hanging over his face came out, and seeing me, drew his sabre and made toward me to kill me. Whereupon I took up a large fragment of the wall which lay at my feet, and as he came forward I threw it and felled him to the ground; then running up, I snatched the sabre from his hand, and would have destroyed him, but he cried out, saying, 'Take care what thou doest, rash man; for it is not one but two lives that thou takest away when thou destroyest me!'
"Amazed and wondering how it was possible for me to destroy two lives by avenging myself on one wretch, who, without offence, had meditated my death, I stayed my hand; which the young man seeing, he aimed to pull the sabre out of my hand, whereupon I lifted up the sabre above his head, and at one blow severed it from his body. Immediately, seeing the blood start from his veins, I ran out of the enclosure, fearing lest any one of his company should overtake me, and flew till I reached the city of Delhi, where I subsisted that night and this day on the alms of the Faithful, till I met my Sultan and his Vizier in the habit of two fakeers."
"And what," said the Sultan, "has made thee thine own accuser, since the life you took was in your own defence? If thy tale is true, his blood rests on his own head, who was the aggressor; but the story is so singular, that I shall detain thee till my Vizier and a party of soldiers be sent to search the enclosure you have mentioned."
The Vizier then gave orders for the guard to mount their horses, and the Sultan resolved to accompany the Vizier, the fakeer being carried between two of the guards to point out the scene of the encounter.
The party having arrived at the iron gate of the enclosure, Horam, with ten of the guards, went in on foot, and marched with the fakeer to the tomb where he heard the voices, and whence the young man had issued forth.
As they approached the tomb they beheld the body of the young man on the ground, and his head at a distance.
The guards, entering the tomb, found no one within, but at the upper end they saw a stone case supported by two blocks of black marble. The stone case was covered with a flat marble, which the guards could not remove from its place.
The Vizier, being acquainted with these particulars, returned to the Sultan, and related to him what the guards had discovered. But Misnar, recollecting the many devices which the enchanters had prepared to ensnare him, was very doubtful what course to take.