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ever he bids you, that do ye and gainsay him not in aught.’ And he clad him in a handsome suit and gave him two white slaves, to serve him, and a horse with housings of brocade and a thousand dinars, saying, ‘Provide thyself with this, against the building be completed.’ So Aboukir donned the dress and mounting the horse, became as he were an amir. Night dccccxxxiv Moreover the king assigned him a house and bade furnish it; so they furnished it for him and he took up his abode therein.
On the morrow he mounted and rode through the city, looking about him, whilst the architects went before him, till he saw a place that pleased him and said, ‘This place is good;’ whereupon they turned out the owner thereof and carried him to the king, who gave him, to the price of his holding, what more than contented him. Then the builders fell to work, whilst Aboukir said to them, ‘Build thus and thus and do this and that,’ till they built him a dyery that had not its like; whereupon he presented himself before the king and informed him that they had made an end of building the dyery and that there needed but the price of the dye-stuffs and gear to set it a-work. Quoth the king, ‘Take these four thousand dinars to thy capital and let me see the outcome of thy dyery.’ So he took the money and went to the market, where, finding dye-stuffs[1] plentiful and [well-nigh] valueless, he bought all that he needed of materials for dyeing; and the king sent him five hundred pieces of stuff, which he proceeded to dye of all colours and spread them before the door of his dyery.
When the folk passed by the shop, they saw this wonderful sight, whose like they had never in their lives seen; so they crowded about the door, staring and questioning the
- ↑ Literally, indigo (nileh); but the word is evidently used here to express dye-stuffs in general, as it stands to reason that, in a town where dyeing was confined to blue, indigo would be much in demand and high in price, whilst the other colours would be valueless.
