Know, O my lady, that the cause of my beard being shorn and my eye being out torn was as follows. My father was a King and he had a brother who was a King over another city; and it came to pass that I and my cousin, the son of my paternal uncle, were both born on one and the same day.

The First Kalandars Tale. 105

And years and days rolled on; and, as we grew up, I used to visit my uncle every now and then and to spend a certain number of months with him. Now my cousin and I were sworn friends; for he treated me with exceeding kindness; he killed for me the fattest sheep and poured out the best of his wines, and we enjoyed long hours of conversation and carousing. One day when the wine had gotten the better of us, the son of my uncle said to me, "O my cousin, I have a great service to ask of you; and I desire that you not hinder me in whatever I desire to do!" And I replied, "With joy and goodly will." Then he made me swear the most binding oaths and left me; but after a little while he returned leading a lady veiled and richly adorned with ornaments worth a large sum of money. Presently, he turned to me (the woman being still behind him) and said, "Take this lady with you and go before me to such a burial ground" (describing it, so that I knew the place), "and enter with her into such a sepulchre and there await my coming."

The oaths I swore to him made me keep silence and prevented me from opposing him; so I led the woman to the cemetery and both the lady and I took our seats in the sepulchre; and hardly had we sat down when in came my uncle's son, with a bowl of water, a bag of mortar and an adze somewhat like a hoe. He went straight to the tomb in the midst of the sepulchre and, breaking it open with the adze, set the stones on one side; then he fell to digging into the earth of the tomb until he came upon a large iron plate, the size of a wicket door; and on raising it there appeared below it a staircase vaulted and winding. Then he turned to the lady and said to her, "Come now and take your final choice!" She at once went down by the staircase and disappeared; then he said to me, "O son of my uncle, by way of completing your kindness, when I shall have descended into this place, restore the trap door to where it was, and heap back the earth upon it as it lay before; and then of your goodness mix this unslaked lime which is in the bag with this water which is in the bowl and, after building up the stones, plaster the outside so that none looking upon it shall say—This is a new opening in an old tomb. For a whole year have I worked at this place, of which none knows anything but Allah, and this is what I need from you;" presently adding, "May Allah never rob your friends of you nor make them desolate by your absence, O son of my uncle, O my dear cousin."

And he went down the stairs and disappeared forever. When he was lost to sight I replaced the iron plate and did all his bidding until the tomb became as it was before; and I worked almost unconsciously for my head was heated with wine. Returning to the palace of my uncle, I was told that he had gone out for sport and hunting; so I slept that night without seeing him; and when the morning dawned, I remembered the scenes of the past evening and what had happened between me and my cousin; I repented of having obeyed him when repentance was of no avail. Still, I thought it had been a dream. So I fell to asking for the son of my uncle; but there was none to answer me concerning him; and I went out to the graveyard and the sepulchres, and sought for the tomb under which he was, but could not find it; and I continued wandering about from sepulchre to sepulchre, and tomb to tomb, all without success, until night set in. So I returned to the city, yet I could neither eat nor drink; my thoughts being entirely consumed with my cousin, for I knew not what had become of him; and I grieved with exceeding grief and passed another sorrowful night, watching until the morning.

Then I went a second time to the cemetery, pondering over what the son of my uncle had done; and, deeply regretting my obedience to him, went round among all the tombs, but could not find the tomb I sought. I mourned over the past, and remained in my mourning seven days, seeking the place and ever missing the path. Then my agony of doubt grew upon me until I was almost mad, and I found no way to dispel my grief except by travelling and returning to my father. So I set out and journeyed homeward; but as I was entering my father's capital a crowd of rioters sprang upon me and seized me. I was amazed at this, seeing that I was the son of the Sultan, and these men were my father's subjects and amongst them were some of my own slaves.

The First Kalandars Tale. 107

A great fear fell upon me, and I said to my soul, "Would heaven I knew what has happened to my father!" I questioned those that bound me about the cause of their action, but they returned me no answer. However, after a while one of them said to me (and he had been a hired servant of our house), "Fortune has been false to your father; his troops betrayed him and the Wazir who slew him now reigns in his place, and we lay in wait to seize you by his bidding." I was almost beside myself and felt ready to faint on hearing of my father's death; when they carried me off and placed me before the usurper. Now between me and him there was an old grudge, the cause of which was this. I was fond of shooting with the stone bow, and it happened one day as I was standing on the terrace roof of the palace, that a bird alighted on the top of the Wazir's house when he happened to be there. I shot at the bird and missed the mark; but I hit the Wazir's eye and knocked it out as fate and fortune decreed. Even so says the poet:

We tread the path where Fate has led The path Fate writ we glad must tread: And man in one land doomed to die Death no where else shall do him dead.

And on like wise says another:

Let Fortune have her wanton way Take heart and all her words obey: Nor joy nor mourn at anything For all things pass and no things stay.

Now when I knocked out the Wazir's eye he could not say a single word, because my father was King of the city; but he hated me ever after and dire was the grudge thus caused between us both. So when I was set before him with hands bound and pinioned, he at once gave orders for me to be beheaded. I asked, "For what crime will you put me to death?"; whereupon he answered, "What crime is greater than this?" pointing to the place where his eye had been. I said, "This I did by accident, not of malice prepense;" and he said, "If you did it by accident, I will do the like by you with intention." Then he cried, "Bring him forward," and they brought me up to him, when he thrust his finger into my left eye and gouged it out; whereupon I became one-eyed as you see me. Then he ordered my hands and feet bound, and put me into a chest and said to the executioner, "Take charge of this fellow, and go off with him to the waste lands about the city; then draw your scimitar and slay him, and leave him to feed the beasts and birds." So the headsman fared forth with me and when he was in the midst of the desert, he took me out of the chest (and I with both hands pinioned and both feet fettered) and was about to bandage my eyes before striking off my head. But I wept with such exceeding weeping until I made him weep with me; and, looking at him, I began to recite these couplets:—

"I deemed you coat o' mail that should withstand The foeman's shafts, and you proved foeman's brand; I hoped your aidance in my every chance Though fail my left to aid my dexter hand: Aloof you stand and hear the railer's gibe While rain their shafts on me the giber band: But an you will not guard me from my foes Stand clear, and succour neither these nor those!"

And I also quoted:—

"I deemed my brethren mail of strongest steel And so they were—from foes to fend my dart! I deemed their arrows surest of their aim; And so they were—when aiming at my heart!"

When the headsman heard my lines (he had been the executioner to my sire and he owed me a debt of gratitude) he cried, "O my lord, what can I do, being but a slave under orders?" presently adding, "Fly for your life and never return to this land, or they will slay you and slay me with you, even as the poet said:—

Take your life and fly whenas evils threat; Let the ruined house tell its owner's fate: New land for the old you will seek and find But to find new life you must not await. Strange that men should sit in the stead of shame, When Allah's world is so wide and great! And trust not other, in matters grave Life itself must act for a life beset: never would prowl the lion with maned neck, Did he reckon on aid or of others reck."

Hardly believing in my escape, I kissed his hand and thought the loss of my eye a light matter in consideration of my escaping from being slain. I arrived at my uncle's capital; and, going to him, told him of what had befallen my father and myself; at which he wept with great weeping and said, "truly you add grief to my grief, and woe to my woe; for your cousin has been missing these many days; I do not know what has happened to him, and none can give me news of him." And he wept until he fainted. I sorrowed and condoled with him; and he would have applied certain medicines to my eye, but he saw that it had become like a walnut with the shell empty. Then he said, "O my son, better to lose an eye and keep life!" After that I could no longer remain silent about my cousin, who was his only son and one dearly loved, so I told him all that had happened. He rejoiced with extreme joy to hear news of his son and said, "Come now and show me the tomb;" but I replied, "By God, O my uncle, I do not know its place, though I sought it carefully many times, yet could not find the site."

However, my uncle and I went to the graveyard and looked right and left, until at last I recognised the tomb and we both rejoiced with exceeding joy. We entered the sepulchre and loosened the earth about the grave; then, raising the trapdoor, descended some fifty steps until we came to the foot of the staircase when, behold! we were stopped by a blinding smoke. Thereupon my uncle said that blessed saying whose speaker shall never come to shame, "There is no Majesty and there is no Might, save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great!" And we advanced until we suddenly came upon a great hall, whose floor was strewn with flour and grain and provisions and all manner of necessaries; and in the midst of it stood a canopy sheltering a couch. Thereupon my uncle went up to the couch and, inspecting it, found his son and the lady who had gone down with him into the tomb, lying in each other's embrace; but the two had become black as charred wood; it was as if they had been cast into a pit of fire. When my uncle saw this spectacle, he spat in his son's face and said, "You have your deserts, O you hog! This is your judgment in the transitory world, and yet remains the judgment in the world to come, a harsher and a more enduring one."—

When it was the Twelfth night

He answered, "O son of my brother, this youth from his boyhood was madly in love with his own sister; and often and often I forbade him from her, saying to myself: They are but little ones. However, when they grew up sin occurred between them; and, although I could hardly believe it, I confined him and chided him and threatened him with the severest threats; and the eunuchs and servants said to him:—Beware of so foul a thing which none before you ever did, and which none after you will ever do; and have a care lest you be dishonored and disgraced among the Kings of the day, even to the end of time. And I added:—Such a report as this will be spread abroad by caravans, and take heed not to give them cause to talk or I will assuredly curse you and put you to death. After that I lodged them apart and shut her up; but the accursed girl loved him with passionate love, for Satan had got the mastery of her as well as of him and made their foul sin seem fair in their sight. Now when my son saw that I separated them, he secretly built this underground chamber and furnished it and brought to it provisions, just as you see; and when I had gone out for sport, he came here with his sister and hid from me.

Then His righteous judgment fell upon the two and consumed them with fire from Heaven; and truly the last judgment will deal them harsher pains and more enduring!" Then he wept and I wept with him; and he looked at me and said, "You are my son in his stead." And I thought awhile of the world and of its chances, how the Wazir had slain my father and had taken his place and had put out my eye; and how my cousin had come to his death by the strangest chance: and I wept again and my uncle wept with me. Then we mounted the steps and let down the iron plate and heaped up the earth over it; and, after restoring the tomb to its former condition, we returned to the palace. But hardly had we sat down before we heard the sound of the kettle drum and the blare of trumpets and the clash of cymbals; and the rattling of the warriors' lances; and the clamors of assailants and the clanking of bridles and the neighing of steeds; while the world was covered with dense dust and sand clouds raised by the horses' hoofs. We were amazed at sight and sound, knowing not what could be the matter; so we asked and were told that the Wazir who usurped my father's kingdom had marched his men;

and that after levying his soldiery and taking a host of wild Arabs into service, he had come down upon us with armies like the sands of the sea; their number none could tell and against them none could prevail. They attacked the city unawares, and the citizens, being powerless to oppose them, surrendered the place: my uncle was slain and I made for the suburbs saying to myself, "If you fall into this villain's hands he will assuredly kill you." In this way all my troubles were renewed; and I pondered all that had befallen my father and my uncle and I knew not what to do; for if the city people or my father's troops had recognised me they would have done their best to win favour by destroying me; and I could think of no way to escape except by shaving off my beard and my eyebrows. So I shaved them off and, changing my fine clothes for a Kalandar's rags, I fared forth from my uncle's capital and made for this city; hoping that perhaps someone would assist me to the presence of the Prince of the Faithful, and the Caliph who is the Viceregent of Allah upon earth. Thus have I come here that I might tell him my tale and lay my case before him. I arrived here this very night, and was standing in doubt about where I should go, when suddenly I saw this second Kalandar; so I greeted him saying:—"I am a stranger!"

And he answered:—"I too am a stranger!" And as we were conversing, behold, up came our companion, this third Kalandar, and saluted us saying:—"I am a stranger!" And we answered:—"We too are strangers!" Then we three walked on together until darkness overtook us and Destiny drove us to your house. Such, then, is the cause of the shaving of my beard and mustaches and eyebrows; and the manner of my losing my right eye. They marvelled much at this tale and the Caliph said to Ja'afar, "By God, I have not seen nor have I heard the like of what has happened to this Kalandar!" The lady of the house said, "Rub your head and go your ways;" but he replied, "I will not go, until I hear the history of the two others." Thereupon the second Kalandar came forward; and, kissing the ground, began to tell