burton--1001-nights--sample

question thou deignest ask of it.” The King wondered with exceeding
wonder and shaking with delight at the novelty, said, “O physician,
dost thou really tell me that when I cut off thy head it will speak to
me?” He replied, “Yes, O King!” Quoth the King, “This is indeed a
strange matter!” and forthwith sent him closely guarded to his house,
and Duban then and there settled all his obligations.
Next day he went up to the King’s audience hall, where Emirs and
Wazirs, Chamberlains and Nabobs, Grandees and Lords of Estate were
gathered together, making the presence-chamber gay as a garden of
flower-beds. And lo! the physician came up and stood before the King,
bearing a worn old volume and a little étui of metal full of powder, like
that used for the eyes. Then he sat down and said, “Give me a tray.” So
they brought him one and he poured the powder upon it and levelled
it and lastly spake as follows: “O King, take this book but do not open
it till my head falls; then set it upon this tray, and bid press it down
upon the powder, when forthright the blood will cease flowing. That is
the time to open the book.”
The King thereupon took the book and made a sign to the Sworder,
who arose and struck off the physician’s head, and placing it on the
middle of the tray, pressed it down upon the powder. The blood stopped
flowing, and the sage Duban unclosed his eyes and said, “Now
open the book, O King!” The King opened the book, and found the
leaves stuck together; so he put his finger to his mouth and, by
moistening it, he easily turned over the first leaf, and in like way the
second, and the third, each leaf opening with much trouble; and when
he had unstuck six leaves he looked over them and, finding nothing
written thereon, said, “O physician, there is no writing here!” Duban
replied, “Turn over yet more;” and he turned over three others in the
same way.
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