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PAGE 24

The Ali And Gulhyndi
by [?]

“Holy Allah! Mighty prophet!” exclaimed she, falling on her knees and extending her white arms towards the moon, “save me from this fiend! Remove this seducer who harasses me!” As she uttered these words the young king vanished, and her faithful Argus came in and sat down at her side. The birds were singing in the bushes; the fountain, which had ceased flowing, again murmured, and Gulhyndi fell into a sweet slumber, during which a dream showed her Ali, with his hand on his heart, saying, “I am faithful.” From this time she saw the young king no more. She lived on the roots of the earth, the fruit of the trees, and drank from the fountain. No nymph or other creature appeared again. Her heart being tranquilised, hope revived again in her soul, and she bloomed like the rose in the valley. She tamed many pretty animals, and lived among them like a shepherdess, praying night and morning to Allah, that he might show her Ali, who appeared nightly, in her most pleasing dreams.

While the fair Gulhyndi thus lived happily, her father, on awaking, found himself in a condition quite the reverse of hers. When he opened his eyes, he was stretched on a barren rock, under a burning sun, and with the cord still round his neck. Stung by an innumerable quantity of gnats and flies, that were buzzing round him, he sprung up, and with all the torments of a parching thirst, which allowed him no time for reflection, he ran about seeking a spring to refresh himself, but found none–not even a tree was nigh to cast a shade in which he might repose. Just as he was falling senseless to the ground, he discovered a cavern, which, by the rays of the sun shining into it, he found was spacious.

Further in the back ground some rays of light fell in through an aperture. Hussain entered, and found a table cut out in the rock. A stone near it served as a chair, a wooden goblet stood on it, and close by a fountain was bubbling. The first thing he did was to take the goblet and run to the fountain in order to fill it and drink. He filled it a second time, but finding it too cool in the shady cavern, and apprehensive of producing a fever, he took the goblet, sat down at the entrance of the cavern in the sun, and slowly emptied its contents. While doing this, it seemed as if something was moving at the bottom of the goblet, and on looking in he discovered a black leech writhing. Disgusted, he threw from him the goblet, the contents of which caused vomiting, and he fell fainting on the ground.

He was roused by a violent shaking. Opening his eyes, he saw a little deformed figure standing before him with a hump on his chest and back, with squinting eyes, and with a nose that hung over his mouth like a bunch of purple grapes. His clothes were black, and he wore a miner’s apron, having on his head a black cap, upon which appeared a death’s head and cross bones. In his hand he held a miner’s hammer. “What are you doing here?” asked the monster, “Who gave you permission to enter my cavern, to cast my goblet in the sand, and to sleep on my ground?”

“Pardon me, sir,” replied Hussain; “I am a poor unhappy wretch, and know not how I am come hither. I was once Cadi of Bagdad, thus much I recollect; I had a beautiful daughter, who was to be married to the son of my enemy, but I would not give my consent. What took place further is concealed from my memory as if by a mist.”