The Arabian Nights Entertainments — Volume 03 by Anonymous
page 74 of 492 (15%)
page 74 of 492 (15%)
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she put up the vessels and boxes in their places again; and on
her pronouncing certain words, the rivulet disappeared. When the cake was baked, she took it off the coals, carried it into her closet, and afterwards returned to King Beder, who dissembled so well, that she had not the least suspicion of his having seen what she had done. King Beder, whom the pleasures and amusements of a court had made to forget his good host Abdallah, began now to think of him again, and believed he had more than ordinary occasion for his advice, after all he had seen the queen do that night. As soon as he was up, therefore, he expressed a great desire to go and see his uncle, and begged of her majesty to permit him. "What! my dear Beder," cried the queen, "are you then already tired, I will not say with living in so superb a palace as mine is, where you must find so many pleasures, but with the company of a queen, who loves you so passionately as I do, and has given you so many marks of affection?" "Great queen!" answered king Beder, "how can I be tired of so many favours and graces as your majesty perpetually heaps upon me? So far from it, I desire this permission, madam, purely to go and give my uncle an account of the mighty obligations I have to your majesty. I must own, likewise, that my uncle loving me so tenderly, as I well know he does, having been absent from him now forty days, I would not give him reason to think, that I consent to remain longer without seeing him." "Go," said the queen, "you have my consent; but you will not be long before you return, if you consider I cannot possibly live without you." This said, she ordered him a horse richly caparisoned, and he departed. |
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