“You come to mock me too,” cried the prince angrily, “and to tell me that what I have seen was only a dream!” He then seized him by the beard, and beat him most unmercifully, till his strength quite failed him. The poor grand vizier bore all this treatment from prince Camaralzaman very respectfully. “Here am I,” said he to himself, “precisely in the same situation as the slave; happy shall I be, if, like him, I can escape from so great a danger.”’ While the prince was still employed in beating him, he cried, “I entreat you, prince, to listen to me for one moment.” The prince, tired of this occupation, suffered him to speak.
“I own to you, prince,” said the grand vizier, as soon as he had liberty to speak, “that your suspicions are not unfounded; but you well know, that a minister is compelled to execute the orders of the king his master. If you will have the goodness to suffer me to go, I am ready to take any message to him with which you will entrust me.”—“I give you leave to go,” replied the prince. “Tell my father that I will marry the lady whom he sent, or brought me, and who slept with me last night. Be expeditious, and bring me the answer.” The grand vizier made a profound reverence on quitting him; but he could hardly be satisfied of his safety, till he was out of the tower, and had fastened the door after him. He presented himself before king Schahzaman with an air of sorrow which alarmed him. “Well,” said the monarch, “in what state did you find my son?”—
“Sire,” replied the vizier, “what the slave related to your majesty is but too true.” He then gave him an account of the conversation he had had with Camaralzaman, of the rage the prince had been in, when he attempted to convince him that the lady he spoke of could not possibly have slept with him, of the cruel treatment he had met with from him, and of the excuse by which he had escaped from his fury.
Schahzaman, who was the more grieved at this circumstance, as he had always loved the prince with the greatest tenderness, wished to investigate the truth of it himself: he repaired to the tower, and took the grand vizier with him. Prince Camaralzaman received his father with the greatest respect. The king sat down, and having made the prince sit next him, he asked him many questions, to which he replied with perfect good sense, and from time to time he looked at the vizier, as if to say, that the prince, his son, was not deranged in his intellects as he had asserted; but that he must himself be deficient in this respect.
At length the king mentioned the lady. “My son,” said he, “I beg you to tell me who this lady is, who they say slept with you last night.”—“Sire,” replied Camaralzaman, “I entreat your majesty not to add to the vexation I have already encountered on this subject; rather do me the favor to bestow her on me in marriage. Whatever aversion I may hitherto have evinced against women, this young and beautiful lady has so charmed me, that I feel no difficulty in avowing my weakness. I am ready to receive her from your hands, with the deepest sense of my obligation to you.”
King Schahzaman was thunder-struck at this answer from the prince, which, as it appeared to him, was so inconsistent with the good sense he had shown in former answers. “You speak to me in a way, my son,” said he, “that astonishes me beyond measure. I swear to you, by the crown which is to adorn your brow when I shall be no more, that I know nothing of the lady you talk of. I have not been accessary to her visit, if any one has been with you; but, how is it possible that she should have penetrated into this tower without my consent? as to what my grand vizier said to you, he only invented a story to appease you. It must have been a dream; recollect yourself, I conjure you, and be careful to ascertain the fact.”
“Sire,” resumed the prince, “I should be for ever unworthy of the goodness of your majesty, if I refused to give faith to the solemn assurance you have given me; but I request you to have the patience to listen to me, and then judge, if what I shall have the honor of relating to you can be a dream.”
Prince Camaralzaman then told the king, his father, in what manner he had waked in the night. He gave him an exaggerated description of the beauty and charms of the lady he had found by his side, confessed the love which had so instantaneously inflamed his breast, and related all his fruitless endeavours to awaken her. He did not even conceal what had made him awake; and that he fell asleep again after he had made the exchange of his ring for that of the lady. When he concluded, he took the ring from his finger, and presented it to the king, “Sire,” added he, “mine is not unknown to you, for you have seen it several times. After this, I hope you will be convinced that I have not lost my senses, as they would fain persuade you is the case.”
The king was so fully convinced of the truth of what the prince had recounted to him, that he had nothing to reply. Added to which, his astonishment was so excessive, that he remained a considerable time incapable of uttering a single word.
The prince took advantage from these moments of silent wonder. “Sire,” continued he, “the passion I feel for this charming person, whose precious image is so deeply engraven on my heart, has already risen to so violent a pitch, that I am sure I have not strength to endure it. I humbly supplicate you to feel compassion for the state I am in, and to procure me the unspeakable happiness of possessing and calling her mine.”