journey northwards, travelling not
like my son had done, by relays of the swiftest horses that could be
forced into the service, but slowly and wearily on foot. It took me many
weeks to accomplish the distance he had traversed in a few days; but not
to inflict upon you the tedious incidents of my journey, I will only say
that I arrived at length in that region to which I believed my son had
carried the beautiful slave. Not without considerable risk, on account
of the hatred felt by all the people of that infidel nation, against true
believers, I succeeded in reaching the capital, where I soon learnt on
inquiry, that a gholam of the Shah of Persia had arrived recently,
bringing with him a lady of extreme beauty, who was, it appeared, the
daughter of the king of that country.

"The king had received his daughter, and my son also for her sake, with
every demonstration of joy and satisfaction. And the young people,
married, and very happy, were now living in the royal palace.

"I managed soon to let my son know of my arrival, and he came at once to
the khan where I was staying, and welcomed me with much affectionate
delight; all the more because since his departure from Shiraz he had
begun too late to consider the vengeance with which the incensed Shah
might only too probably visit me in consequence of his misdoing.

"He conducted me forthwith to the palace, and introduced me to my
daughter-in-law, the beautiful slave with whom he had eloped; and also to
his father-in-law, the king of that country, who received me very
graciously, and bestowed upon me, in recompense for the loss I had
sustained, a fine house and a thousand purses of gold.

"The country in which we now were was a mountainous one, and very bleak
and cold in the winter; and my son Diraz had not been there six months
before he took so violent a chill that he died after a few days' illness.

"About a month later the princess, my daughter-in-law, gave birth to a
female child. Nothing now was so dear to me as my little granddaughter,
and when, five years afterwards, both my daughter-in-law and the king her
father were carried off by a fever which was very prevalent and fatal in
that country, I determined to return with my grandchild to my native
city, there to spend my remaining years in peace.

"We journeyed very slowly, stopping for months together in many of the
cities on our way. At length we arrived safely in Bagdad, and settled
down in the little