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Burton, Richard Francis

"The Arabian Nights"

For the villain
had a brother yet more villainous than himself, and a greater adept in
necromancy, geomancy, and astromancy. And even as the old saw saith,
"A bean and 'twas split," so each one dwelt in his own quarter of
the globe that he might fill it with his sorcery, his fraud, and his
treason. Now one day of the days it fortuned that the Moorman's
brother would learn how it fared with him, so he brought out his
sandboard and dotted it and produced the figures which, when he had
considered and carefully studied them, gave him to know that the man
he sought was dead and housed in the tomb. So he grieved and was
certified of his disease, but he dotted a second time seeking to learn
the manner of the death and where it bad taken place. So he found that
the site was the China land and that the mode was the foulest of
slaughter. Furthermore, that he who did him die was a young man
Aladdin hight. Seeing this, he straightway arose and equipped
himself for wayfare, then he set out and cut across the wilds and
wolds and heights for the space of many a month until he reached China
and the capital of the Sultan wherein was the slayer of his brother.


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