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down. As soon as Hassan felt himself on the ground, he slit the skin and coming forth, called out to the Magian, who rejoiced at hearing his speech and danced for excess of joy, saying to him, ‘Look behind thee and tell me what thou seest.’ Hassan looked and seeing great store of rotten bones and wood, told Behram, who said to him, ‘This is what we seek. Make six bundles of the wood and throw them down to me, for this is wherewithal we do alchemy.’ So he threw him the six bundles and when he had gotten them, he said to Hassan, ‘O good-for-nought, I have accomplished my need of thee; and now, if thou wilt, thou mayst abide on this mountain, or cast thyself down to the earth and perish.’ So saying, he left him and went away, and Hassan exclaimed, ‘There is no power and no virtue save in God the Most High, the Supreme! This accursed dog hath played the traitor with me! And he sat bemoaning himself and reciting the following verses:
When God upon a man possessed of reasoning, Hearing and sight His will in aught to pass would bring,
He stops his ears and blinds his eyes and draws his wit From him, as one draws out the hairs to paste that cling;
Till, His decrees fulfilled, He gives him back his wit, That therewithal he may receive admonishing.
So say thou not of aught that haps, “How happened it?” For fate and fortune fixed do order everything.
Night dcclxxxiv.Then he rose to his feet and looked right and left, after which he walked on along the mountain-top, making sure of death. He fared on thus till he came to the other brow of the mountain, under which he saw a dark-blue foaming sea, swollen with clashing billows, each as it were a great mountain. So he sat down and repeated what he might of the Koran and besought God the Most High to ease him of his troubles, either by death or deliverance from that his strait. Then he recited for himself
