1116페이지 중 545페이지

Then he wiped away his tears and, turning to his son, said to

him, "Before I proceed, O my son, to my last charges and

injunctions, know that I have a brother, and thou hast an uncle,

Shams al-Din hight, the Wazir of Cairo, which whom I parted,

leaving him against his will.

Now take thee a sheet of paper and write upon it whatso I say to

thee." Badr al-Din took a fair leaf and set about doing his

father's bidding and he wrote thereon a full account of what had

happened to his sire first and last; the dates of his arrival at

Bassorah and of his foregathering with the Wazir; of his

marriage, of his going in to the Minister's daughter and of the

birth of his son; brief, his life of forty years from the date of

his dispute with his brother, adding the words, "And this is

written at my dictation and may Almighty Allah be with him when I

am gone!" Then he folded the paper and sealed it and said, "O

Hasan, O my son, keep this paper with all care; for it will

enable thee to stablish thine origin and rank and lineage and, if

anything contrary befal thee, set out for Cairo and ask for thine

uncle and show him this paper and say to him that I died a

stranger far from mine own people and full of yearning to see him

and them." So Badr al-Din Hasan took the document and folded it;

and, wrapping it up in a piece of waxed cloth, sewed it like a

talisman between the inner and outer cloth of his skull-cap and

wound his light turband [FN#390] round it.