The Arabian Nights [249]
The jeweller being encouraged by this assurance, and overjoyed to hear that the prince of Persia and Schemselnihar were safe, resolved to engage the robbers yet farther in their interest. He commended them, flattered them, and gave them a thousand benedictions. "Gentlemen," said he, "I must confess I have not the honour to know you, yet it is no small happiness to me that I am not wholly unknown to you; and I can never be sufficiently grateful for the favours which that knowledge has procured me at your hands. Not to mention your great humanity, I am fully persuaded now, that persons of your character are capable of keeping a secret faithfully, and none are so fit to undertake a great enterprise, which you can best bring to a good issue by your zeal, courage, and intrepidity. Confiding in these qualities, which are so much your due, I hesitate not to tell you my whole history, with that of those two persons you found in my house, with all the fidelity you desire me."
After the jeweller had thus secured, as he thought, the confidence of the robbers, he made no scruple to relate to them the whole amour of the prince of Persia and Schemselnihar, from the beginning of it to the time he had received them into his house.
The robbers were greatly astonished at all the particulars they heard, and could not forbear exclaiming, "How! is it possible that the young man should be the illustrious Ali Ebn Becar, prince of Persia, and the young lady the fair and celebrated beauty Schemselnihar?" The jeweller assured them nothing was more certain, and that they need not think it strange, that persons of so distinguished a character should wish not to be known.
Upon this assurance of their quality, the robbers went immediately, one after another, and threw themselves at their feet, imploring their pardon, and protesting that nothing of the kind would have happened to them, had they been informed of the quality of their persons before they broke into the house; and that they would by their future conduct endeavour to make amends for the crime they had thus ignorantly committed. Then turning to the jeweller, they told him, they were heartily sorry they could not restore to him all that had been taken from him, part of it being no longer in their possession, but as for what remained, if he would content himself with his plate, it should be forthwith put into his hand.
The jeweller was overjoyed at the favour done him, and after the robbers had delivered to him the plate, they required of the prince, Schemselnihar, and him, to promise them upon oath, that they would not betray them, and they would carry them to a place whence they might easily return to their respective homes. The prince, Schemselnihar, and the jeweller, replied, that they might rely on their words, but since they desired an oath of them, they solemnly swore not to discover them. The thieves, satisfied with this, immediately went out with them.
On the way, the jeweller, uneasy at not seeing the confidant and the two slaves, came up to Schemselnihar, and begged her to inform him what was become of them. She answered, she knew nothing of them, and that all she could tell him was, that she was carried away from his house, ferried over the river, and brought to the place from whence they were just come.
Schemselnihar and the jeweller had no farther conversation; they let the robbers conduit them with the prince to the river's side, when the robbers immediately took boat, and carried them over to the opposite bank.
While the prince, Schemselnihar, and the jeweller were landing, they heard the noise of the horse patrol coming