Tales of the Caravan, Inn, and Palace - Вильгельм Гауф

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in a loud voice; and at each name a hand was thrust through the wall, and the physician felt the pulse. Six were called off, and pronounced in good health, when Thiuli called out the name "Fatima," as the seventh, and a small white hand slipped through the wall. Trembling with joy, Mustapha seized this hand and declared with an important air, that Fatima was seriously sick. Thiuli became very anxious, and ordered his wise Chakamankabudibaba to prepare at once some medicine for her. The physician went out of the room, and wrote on a small piece of paper:

      "Fatima! I will save you, if you have the strength of will to take a medicine that will deprive you of life for two days; still I possess a remedy that will restore you to life again. If you are willing to do this, speak these words: 'The medicine did not help me any,' and I shall take it as a sign of your assent."

      Mustapha returned to the room where Thiuli was awaiting him. He brought with him a harmless drink, felt of Fatima's pulse once more, at the same time tucking the note under her bracelet, and passed the drink through the opening in the wall. Thiuli seemed to be very anxious about Fatima, and put off the examination of the rest until a more favorable opportunity. As he left the room with Mustapha, he said, in a sad tone: "Chidababa, tell me the exact truth; what is your opinion of Fatima's sickness?" Chakamankabudibaba replied with a deep sigh: "Oh Master! may the good Prophet send you consolation; she has a stealthy fever that may end her life." At this reply Thiuli's anger flamed up. "What's that you say, you cursed dog of a doctor! Do you mean to say that she, for whom I paid two thousand pieces of gold, will die on my hands like a cow? Know, then, that if you do not save her, I will take your head off!"

      My brother at once saw that he had made a stupid mistake, so he hastened to assure Thiuli there was still hope for Fatima. While they were speaking together, a black slave came from the seraglio to say to the physician that the drink did not help her any. "Put forth all your art, Chakamdababelda, or whatever you call yourself, and I will pay you whatever you ask," exclaimed Thiuli-Kos, wild with anxiety at the prospect of losing so much money. "I will give her a little decoction that will save her from danger," answered the physician. "Yes! by all means, give her the medicine," cried old Thiuli.

      Mustapha, in high spirits, went to fetch the sleeping potion, and after handing it to the slave, with instructions as to the quantity to be taken, he returned to Thiuli, and told him that now he must go down to the sea and gather some healing herbs. He then hurried away to the sea, that was not far off, where he took off his various disguises and flung them into the water, where the waves tossed them about. He then concealed himself in the bushes until evening, when he stole quietly up to the burial vault of Thiuli's castle.

      Hardly an hour after Mustapha had departed from the castle, word was brought Thiuli that his slave Fatima was dying. He at once sent down to the shore to have the physician brought back, but his messengers soon returned with the information that the poor doctor had fallen into the water and been drowned; his black cloak was floating on the waves, and occasionally his magnificent black beard might be seen bobbing up and down in the water.

      When Thiuli saw there was no hope of her recovery, he cursed himself and the whole world, tore out his beard, and butted his head against the wall. But all this availed nothing, for Fatima, under the care of the other women, soon ceased to breathe. When Thiuli heard of her death, he ordered a coffin to be hastily made, as he could not suffer a dead person to remain in the house, and had the body carried to the tomb. The bearers carried the coffin there, dropped it hastily, and fled, as they heard groans and sighs proceeding from the other coffins.

      Mustapha, who had hidden behind the coffins and frightened away the bearers of Fatima's coffin, now came out from his hiding place, and lighted a lamp that he had provided for this purpose. Next he produced a phial containing the restorative, and raised the lid of Fatima's coffin. But what was his amazement when the rays of the lamp disclosed features entirely strange to him! It was neither my sister nor Zoraide, but quite another person, that lay in the coffin. It took him a long time to recover from this latest blow of fate, but finally pity overcame his vexation. He opened the phial, and poured some of the contents into the mouth of the sleeper. She breathed, opened her eyes, and seemed for a long time to be trying to make out her situation. At last she recalled all that had happened, and, stepping out of the coffin, flung herself at Mustapha's feet. "How can I thank you, gracious being?" cried she, "for freeing me from my terrible prison!" Mustapha interrupted her expressions of gratitude with the question how it happened that she and not his sister Fatima had been rescued. She looked at him in an astonished way before replying: "Now for the first time I understand what before was incomprehensible to me. You must know that I was called Fatima in the castle, and it was to me you gave the note and medicine." My brother requested her to give him news of his sister and Zoraide, and learned that they were both in the castle, but, in accordance with a custom of Thiuli's, had received other names, and were now called Mirza and Nurmahal.

      When the freed slave, Fatima, saw that my brother was so cast down by this mistake, she consoled him with the assurance that she could point out another way by which both of the young girls might be rescued. Aroused by what she said, he begged her to tell him her plan, to which she replied--

      "For some five months I have been Thiuli's slave; yet from the first I have planned to escape, but it was too much of a task for me to attempt alone. In the inner court of the castle you must have noticed a fountain that throws the water in a cascade from ten pipes. This fountain impressed me strongly, because I remembered a similar one in my father's house, the water of which was brought through a large aqueduct. In order to learn whether this fountain was built in the same way, I one day praised its beauty to Thiuli, and asked who had constructed it. 'I built it myself,' answered he; 'and what you see here is the least part of the work, as the water is brought from a brook, a thousand paces away, through an arched viaduct at least high enough for a man to walk in. And the construction of all this I directed myself.'

      "Since hearing this, I have often wished for the strength of a man to pull out a stone in the side of the fountain, and thereby escape. I will now show you the aqueduct, through which you can obtain entrance to the castle at night, and set your sister free. But you ought to have at least two men with you, in order to overpower the slaves who watch the seraglio at night."

      My brother Mustapha, although he had seen his plans twice frustrated, plucked up courage once more at these words, and hoped, with Allah's assistance, to carry out the scheme of the slave. He promised to see that she arrived safely at her home if she would assist him to enter the castle. But one point caused him some little perplexity: where should he obtain two or three men upon whom he could depend? Just then Orbasan's dagger occurred to him, and the promise he had received from the bandit that, in case of need, he would hasten to his assistance; and he therefore left the vault, in company with Fatima, to hunt up the robber.

      In the same village which had witnessed his transformation into a physician, he bought a horse with what money remained to him, and procured a lodging for Fatima with a poor woman who lived in the suburb. He then hastened toward the hills where he had first met Orbasan, and arrived there in three days. He soon found their tents, and appeared unexpectedly to Orbasan, who greeted him with friendliness. He gave an account of his failures, at which the grave Orbasan could not refrain from laughing now and then, especially when he thought of the physician Chakamankabudibaba. But he was terribly enraged over the treachery of the ugly little monster, Hassan, and swore he would hang him up wherever he found him. He also promised that when my brother had refreshed himself after the fatigue of his journey, he would be ready to assist him.

      Mustapha therefore spent the night in Orbasan's tent. With the early dawn they rode off, accompanied by three of Orbasan's bravest men well mounted and armed. They rode very fast and in two days' time reached the place where Mustapha had left Fatima. They took her with them, and journeyed on until they came to the small wood from whence Thiuli's castle could be seen, where they went into camp until night should come.

      As soon as it was dark, guided by Fatima, they stole up to the brook where the aqueduct began, and soon discovered the entrance. There they left Fatima and a servant with the horses, and prepared to descend into the conduit; but before they went in, Fatima repeated once more her instructions to them--they would emerge from the fountain into the inner court, in the right and left corners of which were towers, and in

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