This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
MOHAMMED THE LANGUID.
189

'He is not here; he is gone on a journey, but it is the second mouth since he went on his journey, and this is his time for coming.' And I said to them, 'Quick! bind him and bring him.' At once I saw him brought before me, and his hands behind him. And I asked him, 'Are you he that carried off that lady?' And he said, 'It was I.' So I said to him, 'As the Shereef turned you into an ape and cast you out upon the world, so I will put you in a bottle of copper, and will cast you into the sea.'

"Then I took him and put him into a bottle of copper, and carried him to the damsel, and we cast him into the sea. So I ordered the Jins to carry away every choice thing and every rarity. And myself and my wife, we sat upon a couch, with the bar, and the incense-pot and its incense, and everything that pleased me. And I ordered the Jins to carry us.

"And the Jins carried us until we reached the city of Bussorah, and put us inside my house. And I called my father-in-law, the Shereef, in the morning, and he came with my mother, and my relations, and those I loved. And they came, and we met joyfully, talking and laughing. And we made a fresh kind of marriage, and we made a great wedding with joy, and the damsel's father rejoiced exceedingly. And so we dwelt in joy, talking and laughing.

"And as for these things, say not that I prepared them for you through fear, but I felt that these things did not become me, and so I thought I had better give them to you—you are the caliph, and a great man, and I am a little man."

And the caliph said to him, "Thanks; and do you remain here; go not again to Bussorah." And people were chosen to go to Bussorah, to go and remove his goods. And they came with them to the country of Baghdad, and he dwelt in peace and perfect satisfaction.