have obeyed your orders.” “This is not all,” replied the sultan, “I have farther commands for you’’; and so saying he went out of the hall of audience, and returned to Pirouzè’s apartment, the vizier following him. He asked the princess where Codadad’s widow had taken up her lodging. Pirouzè’s women told him, for the surgeon had not forgotten that in his relation. The sultan then turning to his minister, ‘‘Go,” said he, “to this caravanserai, and conduct a young princess who lodges there, with all the respect due to her quality, to my palace.”
The vizier was not long in performing what he was ordered. He mounted on horseback with all the emirs and courtiers, and repaired to the caravanserai, where the princess of Deryabar was lodged, whom he acquainted with his orders; and presented her, from the sultan, with a fine white mule, whose saddle and bridle were adorned with gold, rubies, and diamonds. She mounted, and proceeded to the palace. The surgeon attended her, mounted on a beautiful Tartar horse which the vizier had provided for him. All the people were at their windows, or in the streets, to see the cavalcade; and it being given out that the princess, whom they conducted in such state to court, was Codadad’s wife, the city resounded with acclamations, the air rung with shouts of joy, which would have been turned into lamentations had that prince’s fatal adventure been known, so much was he beloved by all.
The princess of Deryabar found the sultan at the palace gate waiting to receive her: he took her by the hand and led her to Pirouzè’s apartment, where a very moving scene took place. Codadad’s wife found her affliction redouble at the sight of her husband’s father and mother; as, on the other hand, those parents could not look on their son’s wife without being much affected. She cast herself at the sultan’s feet, and having bathed
[ 284 ]
