Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 3 (1925-09).djvu/41
that which he could inflict even worse than that which he first mentioned.
"Therefore I fancy that you will accept my merciful sentence. And do not seek to arouse my wrath with rash words, hoping for a swift swordstroke; for I have set my heart on this jest, and on none other. In half an hour I shall visit you to see whether you have drunk this wine. And if not, you shall both endure that which I but mentioned, and more whereof even I have not dreamed. Dhivalani," he concluded, "make your choice."
And at these words Dhivalani with a gesture indicated the glass from which she would drink, and that which would remain as the portion of her lover. A moment's pause; an exchange of glances; the half parting of lips speaking a speechless farewell; and then members of the guard, followed by slaves who bore the fatal wine, escorted the lovers to separate rooms where each would meet destiny alone, without even the solace of a word of farewell ere the swiftly spreading poison executed the sultan's vengeance.
An attendant approached and presented to Iftikar his great simitar; and other justice was dispensed, swift, sure, sanguinary. All the while the sultan smiled, as if in anticipation of a rare jest. At last he arose, dismissed the court, and, accompanied by Ismail, entered the room to which Mamoun had been taken to meet his fate.
El Idrisi lay on the tiled floor. pool of blood testified that a poniard which had eluded the search of the guard had done its work well.
"I have won!" gasped el Idrisi, exultantly. "By your oath, you must set her free, for I did indeed taste the wine, and the bitterness thereof. But rather than drink it and die by her choice, I am dying by my own hand."
To which the sultan smilingly retorted, "But you lose, Mamoun, for the bitterness which you tasted was but that natural to the wine. Neither glass was poisoned; and each of you was to be set free, forever to mourn in exile the life gained at the other's cost. I shall keep my oath and set her free, even as I would have done for you. You two might some day have met on the road of destiny; but now you die, knowing that you have sentenced her to believe that her choice gave her life at your cost."
"Father of many pigs," coughed el Idrisi, "you lie!"
"Then look, Mamoun, see whether or not this wine is poisoned."
And smiling at his own excellent jest, the sultan drank the wine at a draft.
The next day a new sultan ruled in Angor-lana; for Amru, unable to warn the lovers of the sultan's jest, had in the kindness of his heart poisoned both flagons of wine while the African executioner had been examining the Feringhi coin.
