PAGE 8
The Talisman Of Solomon
by
“Then open the door for me,” said the young man; “for I cannot open it for myself, as there is neither lock nor key to it.”
“That also I am forbidden to do,” said Zadok.
“I wish that I knew what was there,” said the young man.
The Demon laughed. “Some time,” said he, “thou mayest find for thyself. Come, let us leave here and go to the palace which thy father built years ago, and which he left behind him when he quitted this place for the place in which thou knewest him.”
He led the way and the young man followed; they passed through the vaulted rooms and out through the door of adamant, and Zadok locked it behind them and gave the key to the young man.
“All this is thine now,” he said; “I give it to thee as I gave it to thy father. I have shown thee how to enter, and thou mayst go in whenever it pleases thee to do so.”
They ascended the steps, and so reached the garden above. Then Zadok struck his heel upon the ground, and the earth closed as it had opened. He led the young man from the spot until they had come to a wide avenue that led to the palace beyond. “Here I leave thee,” said the Demon, “But if ever thou hast need of me, call and I will come.”
Thereupon he vanished like a flash, leaving the young man standing like one in a dream.
He saw before him a garden of such splendor and magnificence as he had never dreamed of even in his wildest fancy. There were seven fountains as clear as crystal that shot high into the air and fell back into basins of alabaster. There was a broad avenue as white as snow, and thousands of lights lit up everything as light as day. Upon either side of the avenue stood a row of black slaves, clad in garments of white silk, and with jewelled turbans upon their heads. Each held a flaming torch of sandal-wood. Behind the slaves stood a double row of armed men, and behind them a great crowd of other slaves and attendants, dressed each as magnificently as a prince, blazing and flaming with innumerable jewels and ornaments of gold.
But of all these things the young man thought nothing and saw nothing; for at the end of the marble avenue there arose a palace, the like of which was not in the four quarters of the earth–a palace of marble and gold and carmine and ultramarine–rising into the purple starry sky, and shining in the moonlight like a vision of Paradise. The palace was illuminated from top to bottom and from end to end; the windows shone like crystal, and from it came sounds of music and rejoicing.
When the crowd that stood waiting saw the young man appear, they shouted: “Welcome! Welcome! To the master who has come again! To Aben Hassen the Fool!”
The young man walked up the avenue of marble to the palace, surrounded by the armed attendants in their dresses of jewels and gold, and preceded by dancing-girls as beautiful as houris, who danced and sung before him. He was dizzy with joy. “All–all this,” he exulted, “belongs to me. And to think that if I had listened to the Talisman of Solomon I would have had none of it.”
That was the way he came back to the treasure of the ancient kings of Egypt, and to the palace of enchantment that his father had quitted.
For seven months he lived a life of joy and delight, surrounded by crowds of courtiers as though they were a king, and going from pleasure to pleasure without end. Nor had he any fear of an end coming to it, for he knew that his treasure was inexhaustible. He made friends with the princes and nobles of the land. From far and wide people came to visit him, and the renown of his magnificence filled all the world. When men would praise any one they would say, “He is as rich,” or as “magnificent,” or as “generous, as Aben Hassen the Fool.”