king replied, "Why should I slay you? Have I any quarrel with you?" The man then prepared some food, and laid it out, and they ate together. Shah-Jehan had a pair of scissors with which he ate his food, and put morsels into his companion's mouth also, but while he was doing this the man sneezed and the scissors ran into the back of his mouth, and he fell down dead. The king was much distressed that this man had met his death at his hands, and he immediately came out of the underground chamber, and saw the same bird which had brought him there standing by. Again he caught it by the leg, and again it flew up, carrying the king with it, and put him down at his own palace.
The basin filled with water was lying there, and the two men were waiting for the decision of their dispute. On seeing the king they said: "O king! how is it that you have been able to say your prayers and come back again so quickly?" The king thought to himself, "I have been carried away by a bird, and thrown down in the desert, and I have killed a man, and come all the way back again, and yet they say, 'How quick you have been about your prayers!'" Then he said to them: "What have you to do with my prayers? Attend to your own suit." On this they asked him for his decision, and Shah-Jehan said: "To every man that fate will come which was written on his first day," and so the suit was decided.
XIX.
Shah-Jehan and Aurangzeb.
Shah-Jehan had a wife named Nur-Jehan,[1] whom he loved greatly. Whenever the king sat down to deliver judgments Nur-Jehan used to come and place her hand on the middle of his back (and so influence him). One day a
- ↑ Nur-Jehan was, as a matter of fact, the wife of the Emperor Jehangir. She is Moore's "Nourmahal".
