' Quoth
Shemseddin, 'I am no lackgood, but have great plenty of wealth
and with me are stuffs and merchandise befitting every country in
the world.' Then he showed him his goods and amongst the rest,
forth bales ready packed, with the price, a thousand dinars,
written on each, and said to him, 'Take these forty loads,
together with those thy mother gave thee, and set out under the
safeguard of God the Most High. But, O my son, I fear for thee a
certain wood in thy way, called the Lion's Copse, and a valley
called the Valley of Dogs, for there lives are lost without
mercy.' 'How so?' asked Alaeddin. 'Because of a Bedouin
highwayman, hight Ajlan,' answered his father, 'who harbours
there.' Quoth Alaeddin, 'Fortune is with God; if any part in it
be mine, no harm will befall me.' Then they rode to the cattle
market, where a muleteer alighted from his mule and kissing the
Provost's hand, said to him, 'O my lord, by Allah, it is long
since thou hast employed me to carry merchandise for thee!'
'Every time hath its fortune and its men,' answered Shemseddin;
'and may God have mercy on him who said:
An old man went walking the ways of the world, So bowed and so
bent that his beard swept his knee.
"What makes thee go doubled this fashion?" quoth I.
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