Читать книгу One Thousand and One Nights (Complete Annotated Edition) - Richard Francis Burton - Страница 147

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She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Zau al — Makan went in to his brother Sharrkan, he found him sitting with the Holy Man by his side; so he rejoiced and drew near him and gave him joy of his recovery. Answered he, “Verily we are all under the benediction of this Recluse nor would you have been victorious but for his prayers, indeed he felt no fear this day and he ceased not supplication for the Moslems. I found strength return to me, when I heard your ‘Allaho Akbar,’ for then I knew you to be victorious over your enemies. But now recount to me, O my brother, what befel thee.” So he told him all that had passed between him and the accursed Hardub and related how he had slain him and sent him to the malediction of Allah; and Sharrkan praised him and thanked him for his prowess. When Zat al-Dawahi heard tell of her son’s death (and she still drest as a devotee), her face waxed yellow and her eyes ran over with railing tears: she kept her counsel, however, and feigned to the Moslems that she was glad and wept for excess of joy. But she said to herself, “By the truth of the Messiah, there remaineth no profit of my life, if I burn not his heart for his brother, Sharrkan, even as he hath burned my heart for King Hardub, the mainstay of Christendom and the hosts of Crossdom!” Still she kept her secret. And the Wazir Dandan and King Zau al-Makan and the Chamberlain remained sitting with Sharrkan till they had dressed and salved his wound; after which they gave him medicines and he began to recover strength; whereat they joyed with exceeding joy and told the troops who congratulated themselves, saying, “To morrow he will ride with us and do manly devoir in the siege.” Then said Sharrkan to them, “Ye have fought through all this day and are aweary of fight; so it behoveth that you return to your places and sleep and not sit up.” They accepted his counsel and then each went away to his own pavilion, and none remained with Sharrkan but a few servants and the old woman Zat al-Dawahi. He talked with her through part of the night, then he stretched himself to rest: and his servants did likewise and presently sleep overcame them all and they lay like the dead. Such was the case with Sharrkan and his men; but as regards the old woman she alone abode awake while they slumbered in the tent and, looking at Sharrkan she presently saw that he was drowned in sleep. Thereupon she sprang to her feet, as she were a scald she bear or a speckled snake, and drew from her waist cloth a dagger so poisoned that if laid thereon it would have melted a rock. Then she unsheathed the poniard and went up to Sharrkan’s head and she drew the knife across his throat and severed his weasand and hewed off his head from his body. And once more she sprang to her feet; and, going the round of the sleeping servants, she cut off their heads also, lest they should awake. Then she left the tent and made for the Sultan’s pavilion, but finding the guards on the alert, turned to that of the Wazir Dandan. Now she found him reading the Koran and when his sight fell upon her he said, “Welcome to the Holy Man!” Hearing this from the Wazir, her heart trembled and she said, “The reason of my coming hither at this time is that I heard the voice of a saint amongst Allah’s Saints and am going to him.” Then she turned her back, but the Wazir said to himself, “By Allah, I will follow our Devotee this night!” So he rose and walked after her; but when the accursed old woman sensed his footsteps, she knew that he was following her: wherefore she feared the disgrace of discovery and said in herself, “Unless I serve some trick upon him he will disgrace me.” So she turned and said to him from afar, “Ho, thou Wazir, I am going in search of this Saint that I may learn who he is; and, after learning this much, I will ask his leave for thee to visit him. Then I will come back and tell thee: for I fear thine accompanying me, without having his permission, lest he take umbrage at me seeing thee in my society.” Now when the Wazir heard these words, he was ashamed to answer her; so he left her and returned to his tent, and would have slept; but sleep was not favourable to him and the world seemed heaped upon him. Presently he rose and went forth from the tent saying in himself, “I will go to Sharrkan and chat with him till morning.” But when he entered into Sharrkan’s pavilion, he found the blood running like an aqueduct and saw the servants lying with their throats cut like beasts for food. At this he cried a cry which aroused all who were asleep; the folk hastened to him and, seeing the blood streaming, set up a clamour of weeping and wailing. Then the noise awoke the Sultan, who enquired what was the matter, and it was said to him, “Sharrkan thy brother and his servants are murthered.” So he rose in haste and entered the tent, and found the Wazir Dandan shrieking aloud and he saw his brother’s body without a head. Thereat he swooned away and all the troops crowded around him, weeping and crying out, and so remained for a while, till he came to himself, when he looked at Sharrkan and wept with sore weeping, while the Wazir and Rustam and Bahram did the like. But the Chamberlain cried and lamented more than the rest and asked leave to absent himself, such was his alarm. Then said Zau al-Makan, “Know ye who did this deed and how is it I see not the Devotee, him who the things of this world hath put away?” Quoth the Wazir, “And who should have been the cause of this affliction, save that Devotee, that Satan? By Allah, my heart abhorred him from the first, because I know that all who pretend to be absorbed in practices religious are vile and treacherous!” And he repeated to the King the tale of how he would have followed the Religious, but he forbade him, whereupon the folk broke out into a tumult of weeping and lamentation and humbled themselves before Him who is ever near, Him who ever answereth prayer, supplicating that He would cause the false Devotee who denied Allah’s testimony to fall into their hands. Then they laid Sharrken out and buried him in the mountain aforesaid and mourned over his far-famed virtues. — And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.