The Story of the Limping Schoolmaster.142

The Story of the Limping Schoolmaster.142

My tale, O my lord the Sultan, is marvellous and 'twas as follows. My father was by profession a schoolmaster and, when he fared to the ruth of Almighty Allah, I took his place in the school and taught the boys to read after the fashion of my sire. Now over the schoolroom was an upper lattice whereto planks had been nailed and I was ever casting looks at it till one chance day I said to myself, "By Allah, this lattice thus boarded up needs must contain hoards or moneys or manuscripts which my father stored there before his decease; and on such wise I am deprived of them." So I arose and brought a ladder and lashed it to another till the two together reached the lattice and I clomb them holding a carpenter's adze143 wherewith I prized up the planks until all were removed. And behold, I then saw a large fowl, to wit, a kite,144 setting upon her nestlings. But when she saw me she flew sharply in my face and I was frightened by her and thrown back; so I tumbled from the ladder-top to the ground and brake both knee-caps. Then they bore me home and brought a leach to heal me; but he did me no good and I fell into my present state. Now this, O our lord the Sultan, proveth the weakness of my wit and the greatness of my greed; for there is a saw amongst men that saith "Covetise aye wasteth and never gathereth: so 'ware thee of covetise." Such, O lord of the Age and the Time, is my tale. Hereupon the King bade gifts and largesse be distributed to the three old schoolmasters, and when his bidding was obeyed they went their ways. Then the Sultan turned to the Minister and said, "O Wazir, now respecting the matter of the three maidens and their mother, I would have thee make enquiry and find out their home and bring them hither; or let us go to them in disguise and hear their history, for indeed it must he wonderful. Otherwise how could they have understood that we served them that sleight by marking their door and they on their part set marks of like kind upon all the doors of the quarter that we might lose the track and touch of them. By Allah, this be rare intelligence on the part of these damsels; but we, O Wazir, will strive to come upon their traces." Then the Minister fared forth, after changing his dress and demeanour, and walked to the quarter in question, but found all the doors similarly marked. So he was sore perplext concerning his case and fell to questioning all the folk wont to pass by these doors but none could give him any information; and he walked about sore distraught until even-tide, when he returned to the Sultan without aught of profit. As he went in to the presence, his liege lord asked him saying, "What bringest thou of tidings?" and he answered, "O King, I have not found the property,145 but there passed through my mind a stratagem which, an we carry it out, peradventure shall cause us to happen upon the maidens." Quoth the Sultan, "What be that?" and quoth he, "Do thou write me an autograph-writ and give it to the Crier that he may cry about the city, 'Whoso lighteth wick after supper-tide shall have his head set under his heels.'" The Sultan rejoined, "This thy rede is right." Accordingly, on the next day the King wrote his letter and gave it to the Crier bidding him fare through the city and forbid the lighting of lamps after night-prayers; and the man took the royal rescript and set it in a green bag. Then he went forth and cried about the street saying, "According to the commandment of our King, the Lord of prosperity and Master of the necks of God's servants, if any light wick after night-prayers his head shall be set under his heels, his good shall be spoiled and his women shall be cast into jail." And the Crier stinted not crying through the town during the first day and the second and the third, until he had gone round the whole place; nor was there a citizen but who knew the ordinance. Now the King waited patiently till after the proclamation of the third day; but on the fourth night he and his Minister went down from the palace in disguise after supper-tide to pry about the wards and espy into the lattices of the several quarters. They found no light till they came to the ward where the three damsels lived, and the Sultan, happening to glance in such a direction, saw the gleam of a lamp in one of the tenements. So he said to the Wazir, "Ho! there is a wick alight." Presently they drew near it and found that it was within one of the marked houses; wherefore they came to a stand and knocked at the door,?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