One
day, he bade his attendants take ten days' provender and setting
out for the chase, rode on into the desert four days long, at the
end of which time he came to a verdant champaign, full of wild
beasts pasturing and trees laden with ripe fruit and springs
welling forth. Then he said to his followers, 'Set up the nets in
a wide circle and let our general rendezvous be at the mouth of
the ring, in such a spot.' So they staked out a wide circle with
the nets; and there gathered together a multitude of all kinds of
wild beasts and gazelles, which cried out for fear of them and
threw themselves in terror right in the face of the horses. Then
they loosed the dogs and sakers and hunting lynxes on them and
smote them with arrows in the vitals; so, by the time they came
to the closed end of the ring of nets, they took a great number
of the wild beasts, and the rest fled. Then the prince sat down
by the water-side and letting spread the game before himself,
apportioned it among his men, after he had set apart the choicest
thereof for his father King Suleiman and despatched it to him;
and other part he divided among the officers of his court. He
passed the night in that place, and when it was morning, there
came up a caravan of merchants, with their slaves and servants,
and halted by the water and the verdure. When Taj el Mulouk saw
this, he said to one of his companions, 'Go, bring me news of
yonder folk and ask them why they have halted here.
Pages:
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288