The vizier obeyed;
the sultan lay with her, and, putting her next morning into his
hands in order to be strangled, commanded him to get another next
night. Whatever reluctance the vizier had to put such orders in
execution, as he owed blind obedience to the sultan his master,
he was forced to submit. He brought him then the daughter of a
subaltern, whom he also cut off the next day. After her, he
brought a citizen's daughter; and, in a word, there was every day
a maid married, and a wife murdered.
The rumour of this unparalleled barbarity occasioned a general
consternation in the city, where there was nothing but crying and
lamentation. Here a father in tears, and inconsolable for the
loss of his daughter; and there tender mothers, dreading lest
theirs should have the same fate, making the air to resound
beforehand with their groans; so that, instead of the
commendations and blessings which the sultan had hitherto
received from his subjects, their mouths were now filled with
imprecations against him.
The grand vizier, who, as has been already said, was the
executioner of this horrid injustice against his will, had two
daughters, the eldest called Scheherazade, and the youngest
Dinarzade: the latter was a lady of very great merit; but the
elder had courage, wit, and penetration, infinitely above her
sex; she had read abundance, and had such a prodigious memory
that she never forgot any thing.
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