She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Sultan ordered Amjad to plunder Bahram's house and to hang its owner. So Amjad despatched thither for that purpose a company of men, who sacked the house and took Bahram and brought his daughter to the Wazir by whom she was received with all honour, for As'ad had told his brother the torments he had suffered and the kindness she had done him. Thereupon Amjad related in his turn to As'ad all that had passed between himself and the damsel; and how he had escaped hanging and had become Wazir; and they made moan, each to other, of the anguish they had suffered for separation. Then the Sultan summoned Bahram and bade strike off his head; but he said, "O most mighty King, art thou indeed resolved to put me to death?" Replied the King, "Yes, except thou save thyself by becoming a Moslem." Quoth Bahram, "O King, bear with me a little while!" Then he bowed his head groundwards and presently raising it again, made pro fession of The Faith and islamised at the hands of the Sultan. They all rejoiced at his conversion and Amjad and As'ad told him all that had befallen them, whereat he wondered and said, "O my lords, make ready for the journey and I will depart with you and carry you back to your father's court in a ship." At this they rejoiced and wept with sore weeping but he said, "O my lords, weep not for your departure, for it shall reunite you with those you love, even as were Ni'amah and Naomi." "And what befel Ni'amah and Naomi?" asked they. "They tell," replied Bahram, "(but Allah alone is All knowing) the following tale of
End of Vol. 3
Arabian Nights, Volume 3
Footnotes
[FN#1] This "horripilation," for which we have the poetical term "goose-flesh," is often mentioned in Hindu as in Arab literature.
[FN#2] How often we have heard this in England!
[FN#3] As a styptic. The scene in the text has often been enacted in Egypt where a favourite feminine mode of murdering men is by beating and bruising the testicles. The Fellahs are exceedingly clever in inventing methods of manslaughter. For some years bodies were found that bore no outer mark of violence, and only Frankish inquisitiveness discovered that the barrel of a pistol had been passed up the anus and the weapon discharged internally Murders of this description are known in English history; but never became popular practice.
[FN#4] Arab. "Zakar," that which betokens masculinity. At the end of the tale we learn that she also gelded him; thus he was a "Sandal)," a rasé.
[FN#5] See vol. i. p. 104. {see Volume 1, Note 188}
[FN#6] The purity and intensity of her love had attained to a something of prophetic strain.
[FN#7] Lane corrupts this Persian name to Sháh Zemán (i. 568).