‘Speak more clearly,’ replied the queen, after having scrutinised them. ‘I can do nothing for you unless you publicly relate your adventures without suppressing any detail.’

‘Princess,’ replied one of the strangers, ‘you must be obeyed. I am a merchant from Bassora. I married a girl who was without parallel in the world; she was perfectly beautiful, gentle, and virtuous. Being obliged to travel one day, I left her in my house, mistress of her actions. I begged my brother, the blind man whom you see here, to look after my domestic affairs. On my return he told me that he had detected my wife in sin and that she had been buried alive, that this event had grieved him so much because of me, and that he had wept over it so much that he had lost his sight. That, great queen,’ he added, ‘is my story. I therefore beg you very humbly to give back my brother’s sight. It is to pray this of you that I have come and have brought him here.’

Temim, for it was he who spoke to Repsima without knowing her, here ceased speaking. He awaited the answer of the queen, who was so sur­prised to see her husband there that she could not immediately reply to him, but having recovered from her agitation she said: ‘Is it true that the woman who was buried alive was unfaithful to you? What do you think?’

‘I cannot believe it,’ replied Temim, ‘when I recall all her virtues. But, alas! I have a great confidence in my brother, and that makes me doubt her innocence.’

When the Bassora merchant had spoken thus, the queen said: ‘That is enough; I know better than you whether your wife has been justly condemned. I will let you know to-morrow and we will see whether your brother can recover his eyesight.’ A man in company with Temim then spoke thus: ‘I have a negro slave whom I bought and have brought up from infancy. He has been partly paralysed for years, no doctor can cure him; I bring him here to recommend him to your majesty’s prayers.’

After the queen had heard this speech, and knew that the man who had addressed her was the Arab robber with whom she had lived, and that the paralytic was the very black slave who had tempted her virtue, she said: ‘That is enough, I am well informed on the subject that brings you, it can be decided to-morrow. And you,’ she said turning towards another, ‘what is your malady?’

‘O queen!’ he replied, ‘I do not know to what to attribute my malady, if it is not to the violence I wished to do to a beautiful slave whom I bought some years ago from a young man who sold her to me on the sea-shore.’

The queen, at these words, recognised him as the captain to whom she had been sold. She did not show that she knew him any more than the others, and she let him continue thus. ‘I look,’ he added, ‘upon my misfortune as a punishment from Heaven.’

‘And I,’ cried one of the strangers, ‘I look upon the fits from which I suffer from time to time as a well-deserved punishment for having sold you the slave whom you took on board against her will. I am still more guilty than you, for she was a free woman to whom I owed my life, and in return I gave her over to you and placed her in slavery.’

From this Repsima knew that the man who had just spoken was he whom she had saved from death for sixty sequins. Then she said to the six strangers, ‘I will pray for your relief. Return to your caravan­serai and return to-morrow at the same time. The blind man and the paralytic may be cured pro­vided they make a sincere confession of the crimes they have committed. I know their adventures; but I demand of them to be sincere and not to introduce any false detail into their story, for they will repent it. Instead of interesting myself in them, I shall punish them very rigorously.

‘As for the others,’ she continued, ‘I promise from this moment to pray for them, for they have already told the truth.’

The six strangers returned to their caravanserai. Four were already very pleased. The brother of Temim and the black slave alone were sad. They would have preferred remaining all their lives in the plight they were in, than be obliged to make a public confession of their treachery and their brutality. They tried to conceal their grief from the eyes of those whom they had offended; they passed a sleepless night.

However, the following morning, they were obliged to follow the others. They all went to the palace, and appeared before the queen who was on her throne as on the preceding day. ‘Well!’ she said, as soon as she saw them, ‘are the blind man and the paralytic resolved to disguise nothing? Woe to either of them who does not tell the truth.’ Then the negro advanced full of shame and terror, as he saw it would do him no good to lie, he resolved, at the risk of all that might happen, to make a clean breast of all that had passed with regard to Repsima. He confessed that he had conceived a violent passion for the lady, and that seeing himself rejected, in order to bring about her destruction, he had determined to kill the Arab’s only son.

When the negro had confessed all. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is my crime, and Heaven is witness that I repent.’

‘Ah, traitor,’ cried the Arab robber in a trans­port of rage, ‘so it is you who robbed me of my only son? O queen,’ he added addressing Repsima, ‘permit me to cut off his head immediately. A wretch who is capable of committing the crime he has confessed, is not fit to live!’

‘No,’ replied the queen, ‘I do not wish you to take his life.’

‘I understand, princess,’ replied the Arab, ‘you justly oppose my rage. It were better this wretch should remain paralytic. Death will end his troubles only too soon.’

‘You are mistaken,’ replied Repsima, ‘it is not in order to prolong his troubles that I wish him to live. Since he repents of his crime, we must pray the Most High to pardon him.’ Then she pros­trated herself at the foot of the throne, and the body of the negro was seen immediately to resume its vitality.

All the spectators were surprised at so mar­vellous a thing, and praised God and the queen a thousand times. She also prayed for the man with dropsy and for the epileptic, and both these men were perfectly cured.

Then Temim, not doubting that his brother would recover his eyesight, said to him: ‘O Revendeh! it is for you to speak; the queen is only waiting for that to work a fresh miracle in your favour.’

‘Yes, but,’ said Repsima, ‘let him relate his story, and beware of saying what is not true, for I know all his adventures, and if I detect the least falsehood, punishment awaits him.’

Revendeh, judging by these words that if he persisted in keeping silence, or if he dared to lie, he would be punished on the spot, resolved at last to confess everything. As he sincerely repented of having betrayed his brother, and believed his sister-in-law to be dead, he gave a very touching story of his treachery without seeking to exculpate himself. When he had finished speaking the queen said:

‘He has been very sincere, and has advanced nothing out of conformity with the truth.’

Temim, at these words, which revealed to him all his brother’s malignity and Repsima’s innocence, uttered a great cry and fell down in a swoon. Some of the queen’s officers ran to his aid, and when he had recovered his senses, he prostrated himself before the throne and said: ‘O my princess! permit me to conduct my treacherous brother back to Bassora. I do not ask for him to be cured, I only desire his death. I wish to conduct him to the very place where my wife has been buried alive and there assassinate him. His crime is too black to be pardoned.’ The queen remained for some time without answering, because she was weeping behind her veil, so touched was she at the state her husband was in. When she had dried her tears, she addressed him thus: ‘O merchant of Bassora! I conjure you to moderate your anger for my sake. Your brother has, indeed, committed a great crime; but since he publicly confesses it, remember you are both of the same blood, and let him off the punishment you wished to inflict on him.’

At these words Temim replied: ‘It is for your majesty to command. You wish me to forgive him. I consent to do so provided that he sincerely repents and never accuses anyone falsely again.’ Hardly had the Bassora merchant told the queen that he forgave Revendeh than the princess, with her face to the ground, prayed Heaven to restore his sight to the blind man. Her prayer was heard; at that moment Revendeh’s sight was restored.

At this spectacle the applause was renewed. All the assembly began again to praise God and the queen, who sent the strangers back to their caravanserai, saying: ‘Return here to-morrow, you may see things which will surprise you more perhaps than those which have astonished you to-day.’ The following day they did not fail to return to the palace. The queen called Temim and made him sit upon a gold chair which she had had placed beside the throne for this purpose. Then she said to him: ‘O merchant of Bassora, you have suffered much grief and pain. I enter into your misfortunes, and in order to help you forget them, I have resolved to give you the most beau­tiful of my slaves in marriage, and you shall remain at my court, if you wish.’