HKB
sisters, whom I have transformed into this shape: but this punishment is not sufficient, for I will have you to treat them after such a manner as I shall direct.
At these words, the fairy took me fast under one of her arms, and the two bitches in the other, and carried me to my house at Bagdad, where I found all the riches, which were loaded on board my vessel, in my store-houses. Before she left me, she delivered me the two bitches, and told me, If you wish not to be changed into a bitch, as they are, I ordain you, in the name of him that governs the sea, to give each of your sisters every night a hundred lashes with a rod, for the punishment of the crime they have committed against your person, and the young prince whom they have drowned. I was forced to promise that I would obey her order. Since that time I have whipped them every night, though with regret, whereof your majesty has been a witness. I give evidence, by my tears, with how much sorrow and reluctance I must perform this cruel duty; and in this your majesty may see I am more to be pitied than blamed. If there be any thing else, with relation to myself, that you desire to be informed of, my sister Amine will give you the full discovery of it by the relation of her story.
The caliph heard Zobride with a great deal of astonishment, and desired his grand vizier to pray fair Amine to acquaint him wherefore her breast was marked with so many scars. Upon this, Amine addressed herself to the caliph, and began her story after this manner:
THE STORY OF AMINE.
Commander of the faithful, says she, to avoid repeating what your majesty has already heard from my sister's story, I shall only add, that after my mother had taken a house for herself to live in during her widowhood, she gave me in marriage, with the portion my father left me, to a gentleman that had one of the best estates in this city. I had scarcely been a year married when I became a widow, and was left in possession of all my husband's estate, which amounted to ninety thousand sequins. The interest of this money was sufficient to maintain me very honourably. In the mean time, when my first six months' mourning was over, I caused to be made me ten suits of clothes, very rich, so that each suit came to a thousand sequins; and, when the year was past, I began to wear them.
One day, as I was busy all alone about my private affairs, one came to tell me that a lady desired to speak with me. I ordered that she should be brought in: She was a person well stricken in years; she saluted me by kissing the ground, and told me, kneeling, Dear lady, pray excuse the freedom I take; the confidence I have in your charity makes me thus bold: I must acquaint your ladyship that I have a daughter, an orphan, who is to be married this day; she and I are both strangers, and have no acquaintances at all in this town: this puts me in a perplexity, for we would have the numerous family with whom we are going to ally ourselves to think we are not, altogether strangers, and without credit: Therefore, most beautiful lady, if you would vouchsafe to honour the wedding with your presence, we shall be infinitely obliged to you; because the ladies of your country will then know that we are not looked upon here as despicable wretches, when they shall come to understand that a lady of your quality did us that honour. But, alas! madam, if you refuse this request, we shall be altogether disgraced, and dare not address ourselves to any other.