Page:Arabian Nights Entertainments (1728)-Vol. 4.djvu/19

the Vizier went into his Daughter’s Chamber, and put in their due Place Bedreddin’s Cloaths with the Purſe of Sequins. This done, he ſaid to the beautiful Lady, Undreſs your ſelf, my Child, and go to Bed. As ſoon as Bedreddin enters your Room, complain of his being from you ſo long, and tell him, that when you awaked you were aſtoniſhed you did not find him by you. Preſs him to come to Bed again; and to Morrow Morning you will divert your Mother-in-Law and me, in telling us what paſſes between you and him this Night. This ſaid, he went from his Daughter’s Apartment, and left her to undreſs her ſelf and go to Bed.

Scheherazade would have gone on with her Story, but Day approaching obliged her to diſcontinue it,

TOwards the cloſe of the next Night, the Sultan of the Indies, who was mighty impatient to know where the Story of Bedreddin ſhould end, awaked Scheherazade himſelf, and bid her go on with it, which accordingly ſhe did in the following Terms. Schemſeddin Mohammed, ſaid the Vizier Giafar to the Califf, ordered all his Domeſticks to depart the Hall, excepting two or three, whom he ordered to ſtay there. Theſe he commanded to go and take Bedreddin out of the Cheſt, to ſtrip him to his Shirt and Drawers, to conduct him in that Condition to the Hall, to leave him there all alone, and to ſhut the Door upon him.

Bedreddin Haſſan, tho’ over-whelmed with Grief, had been aſleep all the while; inſomuch that the Vizier’s Domeſticks had taken him out of the Cheſt, and ſtripped him before he waked; and carried him fo ſuddenly into the Hall, that they did not give him time to bethink himſelf where he was. When he found himſelf all alone in the Hall, he looked round him, and the Objects of his Sight recalling to his Memory the Circumſtances of his Marriage, he perceived with Aſtoniſhment that it was the ſame Hall, where he had ſeen the Sultan’s Groom of the Stables. His Surprizal was ſtill the greater, when approaching ſoftly to the Door of a Chamber which he found open, he ſpied within his own Cloaths, in the ſame Place where he remembred