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Shamat,’ answered he. ‘His father equipped him with merchandise and sent him on a journey to Baghdad; but the Bedouins fell on him and took all he had. So when the news of his despoilment reached his father, he despatched me to him with these fifty loads, in place of those he had lost, besides a mule laden with fifty thousand dinars and a parcel of clothes worth much money and a cloak of sables and a basin and ewer of gold.’ When the old merchant heard this, he said, ‘He whom thou seekest is my son-in-law and I will show thee his house.’ Now Alaeddin was sitting in great concern, when one knocked at the door, and he said, ‘O Zubeideh, God is all-knowing! Thy father hath surely sent me an officer from the Cadi or the Chief of the Police.’ ‘Go down,’ said she, ‘and see what it is.’ So he went down and opening the door, found his father-in-law, with an Abyssinian slave, dusky-hued and pleasant of favour, riding on a mule. When the slave saw him, he alighted and kissed his hands: and Alaeddin said, ‘What dost thou want?’ Quoth he, ‘I am the slave of my lord Alaeddin Abou esh Shamat, son of Shemseddin, Provost of the merchants of Cairo, who has sent me to him with this charge.’ Then he gave him the letter and Alaeddin, opening it, read what follows:
Harkye, my letter, when my beloved sees thee, Kiss thou the earth before him and his shoes.
Look thou go softly and hasten not nor hurry, For in his hands are my life and my repose.
Then after the usual salutations from Shemseddin to his son, the letter proceeded thus: ‘Know, O my son, that news hath reached me of the slaughter of thy men and the plunder of thy baggage; so I send thee herewith fifty loads of Egyptian stuffs, together with a suit of clothes and a cloak of sables and an ewer and basin of gold. Fear no evil and be not anywise troubled, for, O my son, the goods thou hast lost were the ransom of thy life. Thy mother
