89
this treasure was to be achieved by means of a lad of mean birth, by name Alaeddin, who was of the city aforesaid, and that it was eath to take and unarduous: so he tarried not, but equipped himself forthright for the voyage to China, as we have said, and did that which he did with Alaeddin, thinking to come by the lamp. But his endeavour was baffled and his expectation baulked and his toil wasted in vain; whereupon he sought to kill Alaeddin and closed up the earth upon him by his sorcery, so he might die (and the live hath no slayer[1]); moreover, he purposed by this that Alaeddin should not come forth and that the lamp should not be brought up from under the earth. Then he went his ways and returned to his country Africa, woeful and despairing of his hope.
So much for the enchanter and as for what came of Alaeddin, after the earth closed over him, he fell to calling upon the Maugrabin, whom he thought his uncle,
- ↑ A proverbial expression, meaning that, as he did not absolutely kill Alaeddin, though doing what was (barring a miracle) certain to cause his death, he could not be said to be his slayer; a piece of casuistry not peculiar to the East, cf. the hypocritical show of tenderness with which the Spanish Inquisition was wont, when handing over a victim to the secular power for execution by burning alive, to recommend that there should be “no effusion of blood.” It is possible, however, that the proverb is to be read in the sense of “He who is destined to live cannot be slain.”
