Almighty will requite the kindness with what is better for thee than any requital of mine. Continued Jaafar, Now lend me an ear and I will give thee a prescription, which I have given to none but thee. What is that? asked the Badawi; and Jaafar answered, Take three ounces of wind-breaths and the like of sunbeams and the same of moonshine and as much of lamp-light; mix them well together and let them lie in the wind three months. Then place them three months in a mortar without a bottom and pound them to a fine powder and after trituration set them in a cleft platter, and let it stand in the wind other three months; after which use of this medicine three drachms every night in thy sleep, and, Inshallah! thou shalt be healed and whole. Now when the Badawi heard this, he stretched himself out to full length on the donkeys back and let fly a terrible loud fart [FN#142] and said to Jaafar, Take this fart in payment of thy prescription. When I have followed it, if Allah grant me recovery, I will give thee a slave-girl, who shall serve thee in they lifetime a service, wherewith Allah shall cut short thy term; and when thou diest and the Lord hurrieth thy soul to hell-fire, she shall blacken thy face with her skite, of her mourning for thee, and shall keen and beat her face, saying O frosty-beard, what a fool thou wast? [FN#143] thereupon Harun al-Rashid laughed till he fell backward, and ordered the Badawi three thousand silver pieces. And a tale is told of
THE CALIPH OMAR BIN AL-KHATTAB AND THE YOUNG BADAWI
The Sharif Husayn bin Rayyán relateth that the Caliph Omar bin Al-Khattáb was sitting one day judging the folk and doing justice between his subjects, attended by the best and wisest of his counsellors, when there came up to him a youth comely and cleanly attired, upon whom two very handsome youths had laid
