One Thousand and One Nights Read Online Free PDF Page B

in curing you? I don’t understand why you would reward me by cutting off my head.”
    “You have indeed cured my illness, sage, with nothing but magic. You might just as easily kill me with magic.”
    “Spare me, Your Majesty, and God shall spare you. Destroy me and God shall destroy you,” the sage pleaded.
    The fisherman stopped the story, saying, “Jinni, you have heard how the sage Duban pleaded with King Yunan. Do you remember how I pleaded with you to spare me?”
    “Yes, I remember, fisherman, go on with your story: I can’t bear being back in here.”
    And so the fisherman continued his story.
    When the sage realised his end had come, he said to the King, “Let me go to my house before you kill me, so that I may prepare my burial. I should like also to present you with my most precious book, so that you may keep it safe with your great treasures. For this book is the secret of secrets. It is unique; it is miraculous; for if you strike off my head and then open the book at page six and read three lines from the left, my head will speak to you! Yes, it will answer all of your questions.”
    The King was amazed. “Wonder of wonders! Go home and fetch the book at once!”
    The sage came before the King bearing an old book and pleaded for his life one last time. “For God’s sake, Your Majesty, spare me and God shall spare you; destroy me and God shall destroy you.”
    “Spare you?” answered the excited King. “But I cannot wait to hear your head talk.”
    Then the King ordered the executioner to cut off the head of the sage. The severed head opened its eyes and asked the King to open the book.
    The King did as he was told, but the pages of the book were stuck together, and so he moistened his finger with his tongue, opened the first page, then wetted his finger again and again until he had reached page six. When he saw that no words appeared upon the page, the King said, “Sage, I see nothing written on page six.”
    The head answered, “Open more pages.”
    The King turned page after page, wetting his finger with his tongue each time, until he began to feel dizzy, and shook and swayed, as he heard the head saying, “This is your end, you brutal, unjust, oppressive King.”
    And the King knew that he had been poisoned by the book, as he fell from his throne, dead.
    “Jinni,” the fisherman called to the jar. “Do you see that if the King had allowed the sage to live then he too would have lived? As for you, if you had answered my pleas and stopped insisting upon killing me, then I would have spared your life. Now, I seek revenge, and I shall hurl you to the bottom of the sea.”
    The jinni cried out, “I know that I was unjust and cruel, but forgive me, for forgiveness is a trait of the noblest men on this Earth. Revenge should never be the solution, for it leads to injustice. Remember the proverb: ‘Be kind to him who wrongs you.’ I beg you, my friend, do not do what Imama did to Atika.”
    The fisherman was curious. “Tell me this story of Imama and Atika.”
    “Not now,” said the jinni. “I can barely breathe in this accursed jar. Fisherman, I swear that if you will set me free I will leave youin peace, but only after I have made you rich, rich beyond your wildest dreams!”
    “You sound as though you’ve learned compassion,” the fisherman replied. “But do you swear, by the Almighty, that if I let you out you will not kill me?”
    “I swear by the Almighty’s name that I shall not harm you and I shall leave you alone.”
    The fisherman opened his mouth to speak, but the jinni quickly added, “And I shall make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.”
    Hearing those last words, the fisherman broke open the seal, hesitated, and then put it in his pocket. The smoke poured from the jar and began to rise, until it covered the sea and the sky. It gathered into a fog and then the jinni once again formed. Realising that he was again free, the jinni gave the jar a powerful kick that sent it