The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 14 | Page 7

eke the beast as tail-less and one-eyed"), and
cried out, "Ye three have carried away my camel!"[FN#8] "By Allah
we have not seen him," quoth the Princes, "much less have we touched
him;" but quoth the man, "By the Almighty, who can have taken him
except you? and if you will not deliver him to me, off with us, I and
you three, to the Sultan." They replied, "By all manner of means; let us
wend to the Sovran." So the four hied forth, the three Princes and the
Cameleer, and ceased not faring till they reached the capital of the King.
There they took seat without the wall to rest for an hour's time and
presently they arose and pushed into the city and came to the royal
Palace. Then they craved leave of the Chamberlains, and one of the
Eunuchs caused them enter and signified to the sovereign that the three
sons of Such-and-such a Sultan had made act of presence. So he bade
them be set before him and the four went in and saluted him, and
prayed for him and he returned their salams. He then asked them,
"What is it hath brought you hither and what may ye want in the way of
enquiry?" Now the first to speak was the Cameleer and he said, "O my
lord the Sultan; verily these three men have carried off my camel by
proof of their own speech."--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day
and fell silent and ceased saying her permitted say. Then quoth her
sister Dunyazad, "How sweet and tasteful is thy tale, O sister mine, and
enjoyable and delectable!" Quoth she, "And where is this compared
with that I would relate to you on the coming night an the Sovran suffer
me to survive?" Now when it was the next night and that was
The Three Hundred and Thirty-first Night,

Dunyazad said to her, "Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other
than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of
this our latter night!" She replied, "With love and good will!" It hath
reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of
the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy
celebrating, that the Cameleer came forward between the Sultan's hands
and said, "O my lord, verily these men have carried away the camel
which belongeth to me,[FN#9] for they have indeed described him and
the burthen he bore! And I require of our lord the Sultan that he take
from these wights and deliver to me the camel which is mine as proved
by their own words." Presently asked the Sultan, "What say ye to the
claims of this man and the camel belonging to him?" Hereto the Princes
made answer, "By Allah, O King of the Age, we have not seen the
camel, much less have we stolen him." Thereupon the Cameleer
exclaimed, "O my lord, I heard yonder one say that the beast was blind
of an eye; and the second said that he was tail-less, and the third said
that half his load was of sour stuff and the other half was of sweet
stuff." They replied, "True, we spake these words;" and the Sultan cried
to them, "Ye have purloined the beast by this proof." They rejoined,
"No, by Allah, O my lord. We sat us in such a place for repose and
refreshment and we remarked that some of the pasture had been grazed
down, so we said, 'This is the grazing of a camel; and he must have
been blind of one eye as the grass was eaten only on one side.' But as
for our saying that he was tail-less, we noted the droppings lying
heaped[FN#10] upon the ground which made us agree that the tail must
have been cut off, it being the custom of camels at such times to whisk
their tails and scatter the dung abroad. So 'twas evident to us that the
camel had lost his tail. But as for our saying that the load was half
Halwá and half Hámiz, we saw on the place where the camel had knelt
the flies gathering in great numbers while on the other were none: so
the case was clear to us (as flies settle on naught save the sugared) that
one of the panniers must have contained sweets and the other sours."
Hearing this the Sultan said to the Cameleer, "O man, fare thee forth
and look after thy camel; for these signs and tokens prove not the theft
of these men, but only the power of their intellect and their
penetration."[FN#11] And when the Cameleer heard this, he went his
ways. Presently the Sultan cleared a place in the Palace and