In fine, a carpenter was sent for, and
he was ordered to get ready a stake for me; but, thanks be to
God, all these things are no more than a dream.
Bedreddin was not easy all night; he awaked from time to time,
and put the question to himself, whether he dreamed or was awake.
He distrusted his felicity; and to ascertain whether it was real
or not, opened the curtains, and looked round the room. I am not
mistaken, said he; this is the same chamber which I entered,
instead of the hunch-backed groom of the stables, and am now in
bed with the fair lady who was designed for him. Day-light, which
then appeared, had not yet dispelled his uneasiness, when the
vizier Schemseddin, his uncle, knocked at the door, and went to
bid him good-morrow.
Bedreddin was extremely surprised to see, on a sudden, a man whom
he knew so well, and who now appeared with a quite different air
from that with which he pronounced the terrible sentence of death
against him. Ah! cried Bedreddin, it was you who condemned me so
unjustly to a manner of death the thoughts of which make me
shrink still; and all for a cream-tart without pepper. The vizier
laughed heartily; but, to put him out of suspense, told him how,
by the ministry of a genius, (for Bossu's relation had made him
suspect the adventure) he had been at his house, and had married
his daughter instead of the sultan's groom of the stables; he
then acquainted him that he had discovered him to be his nephew
by a book written by the hand of Noureddin Ali, and, pursuant to
that discovery, had gone from Cairo to Balsora in quest of him.
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