Let it not be concealed, that from this period, about twenty years, your atom-like slave lived as a soldier. One day, in company with some faithful friends and similarly minded companions, I went to visit a fruit garden. In it was a tree taller than all the rest; its dates hanging in clusters, like moist confec­tions, delicious, full of juice, sweet and full-flavoured, but, from the great height, the hand of no one’s power could pluck the fruit. No person having yet had the boldness to climb the tree, its produce was free from the devastation of man.

As your slave, in the exercise of swarming trees, especially the date, the cocoa nut, and the palmyra, had attained the utmost agility, and my friends esteemed me famous in this art, all of them at once laying the hand of avidity on my skirt, said, “Under the auspices of your kindness, we hope that we shall taste the rare and richly flavoured dates of this tree, and also have the pleasure of beholding how you can ascend so lofty a stem, whose head reacheth the battlements of the sky, and of whose fruit none hath yet eaten but the soarers of the air. It must be by miracle, for what power has humanity to scale the turrets of the heavens?” Though I turned myself aside from this request, begged in every mode to be excused, and evaded the trial, my friends, out of extreme longing for the dates, would not with­draw their hold from my poor person. At length, in spite of disinclination, I tucked up my skirts like a running foot­man, and drawing up my sleeves, in the manner of a magic acting rope-dancer, swarmed up this heaven-touching tree, which you might have styled the ladder of the sky; while a vast crowd below formed a circle around the trunk, to admire my agility.

When I had reached the top, from its towery height, the tallest and lustiest men who stood below seemed to my sight as infant children, and sometimes my sight was lost half-way. The crowd began to form alarming conjectures in their minds concerning my safety. In short, having gathered some clusters of great beauty, richness, and fragrance, I put them into the skirts of my vest, and threw others to my friends below; when suddenly, a black snake with a white hood tinged with yellow, of great thick­ness and length, from whose life-destroy­ing glance the gall would melt to water, and the stoutest heart dissolve like salt, appeared among the leaves and darted towards me, devoted to death. A trem­bling seized my whole frame at the sight; and from dread at his monstrous figure, my joints and members seemed as if they would separate from each other, and the bird of life would quit the nest of my body. Should I throw myself down, reasoned I to myself, the spiritual soarer will half-way in the descent break her elemental cage; and if I stop here, this heart-melting serpent, which resembles a divine judgment, or sudden calamity, will devour me in an instant at one morsel. Both these are grievous; but what is still more afflict­ing is, my becoming a mark for the tongue of mankind, who will say, “The foolish wretch, a slave to gluttony, sacrificed his life for a few dates.” O God of heaven! thus to die, and stamp by the manner of my exit an evil fame on the records of time! What a soul-afflicting difficulty has fortune brought upon me, weak and helpless creature! In short, while I was meditat­ing, the blood-devouring serpent reached me, and folding himself around me, hung from my neck like a wreath, dis­tending his jaws, full of wind and venom, close to my mouth; and fixing his dark, poisonous eyes upon my face, began to dart out his tongue.

From affright, my senses now deserted me, so that to describe my alarm and despair is out of the power of relation, and cannot be compressed into the mould of expression: my hair even now stands erect at the recollection. Such a dry­ness seized my joints and members from terror, that not the least moisture remained in my body, and the blood became stagnant in my veins. My nails clung so closely to the trunk, that you would have said they were the fingers of the chinar* growing from the tree. A vast concourse of people stood around below, who beat together the hands of distress, and from despair uttered cries and shrieks, which reached my ears in horrible sound; while my kinsmen and friends, setting up the exclamations of lamentation, in despondency scattered dust upon their heads.

At this crisis, a well-looking young man, of tall stature, mounted on an horse, without a saddle, and accompanied by a servant carrying a bow and two or three arrows, came to the place, and enquired the reason for the assemblage of so great a concourse, and their outcries? Some of them informed him, pointing me out to him with their fingers. The youth, having examined my situation, and the folds of the serpent round my neck, said, “Are there here any of the nearest kin to this death-devoted per­son?” Upon which my brethren and relatives present, who were shedding the tears of regret at my condition, replied, “Yes; what would you say to us?” The youth continued; “It must be evident and clear to all, that death already sits upon the forehead of yon­der unfortunate, whose escape from calamity by means of human wisdom seems improbable, if not impossible; yet, if laying hold on the strong cord of resignation, and the firm handle of divine goodness, you will give me leave, trusting in him who is all-powerful to deliver, I will shoot an arrow through the body of the blood-devouring snake, and try the pre­destination of this death-seized youth. I am a perfect judge of distance, and in the skill of archery a professor. I can hit the foot of an ant in a dark night; and should they hang a grain of mustard by a single hair, I should not miss it an hair’s breadth. My skill in this art is such that I cannot express; for the direction-point of the arrow in the bent is in my power. The Almighty exalted the standard of this science in the habitable quarters of the globe for me, and in this art the drums of celebrity sound in my name on the plain of the seven regions. As an instance, at present I shall not miss, and at the first aim so bring down the head of yonder ser­pent, that even the wind of the arrow shall not reach the face of the young man, or an injury happen to a single hair. However, as divine decree rules all things, and Providence acts for itself, I am apprehensive that the matter may turn out contrary to my wishes, and you in that case, fixing your hands on my skirts, may accuse me of shedding his blood.”

The whole concourse now, with one voice, exclaimed, and said, “For the delivery of the young man there can be no remedy but this. If he has a predestination of longer life, from this happy policy he will obtain a recovery, and the arrow of prayer will reach the mark of acceptance; if not, he is already placed in the jaws of fate.” My kinsmen resigned them­selves to my destiny, and consented to the young man’s shot.

The youth (may the mercy of God attend his soul!) took the auspicious-omened bow in his grasp, and placing an arrow on the cord, prayed the Almighty to direct his aim for my sake. Then, like a magician practised in sorcery— no—not magic-like, but altogether miraculously, drew to the shaft, and, aiming at the eye of the serpent, let fly.

The point of the arrow, like true policy, reaching its mark, brought the head of the serpent to the ground; and this exclamation from the crowd ascended to the skies, “Praise be to the Giver of life! He cannot die whom HE destines to live, though he seemeth dead. God is potent over all things.”*

The point remained in the jaws, and the young man laying his arrows aside, advancing, took up the head of the serpent, which suddenly moved; and, as the cup of the hero’s age was become flowing over, seizing his lip with its mouth, closed its envenomed teeth. The noble youth, angel-like, fleeted to Para­dise in the twinkling of an eye; and the head of the snake, like a paper-catching fish,* remained fastened on his lip.

Again burst forth the exclamations of all ranks assembled. Overwhelmed in the shoreless ocean of amazement, they afresh acknowledged an omnipotent Ruler; convinced, from the various schemes and differing designs of the ever-existing God, (to the court of whose glory, the messenger of man’s penetration has no admittance) that weak human nature has no means of diving into his councils.

While they were engaged in adora­tion and lamentations, I, having offered up thanksgivings and grateful prayers to almighty God, as fervently as in the power of man, descended from the tree, and following the corpse of that shrub of the garden of paradise, attended it to the unavoidable resting place. Having performed the offices of washing and enshrouding, I committed it as a treasure to the earth, and resigned it to the mercy of God. From the grave I repaired to his house, and, agreeably to the customs of the age, comforted his family, observ­ing the usual condolences. I remarked to them, that in this decaying edifice of mortality, from such a certain, though afflicting event, no one had any escape, nor could lamentation or sorrow produce any other alleviation than the resigned calm of submission.

After the duties of condolence were fulfilled, I remained awhile at the house. There I beheld the daughter of my preserver, like a moon of two weeks, clad in blueish coloured robes, as mourn­ing for the death of her father. Whole constellations of stars, which, however, were but passing meteors, flowed from the recesses of her eyes. The amiable sob­bings of her breast drew sighs from my heart, and her curly tresses became snares to my soul. The week, in which the family was immersed in sorrow, with me, from impatience and anxiety, passed slowly as seven years.