The Story of King Bihkard.[FN#206]

There was once a king named Bihkard, and he had mickle of wealth and many troops; but his deeds were evil and he would punish for a slight offence, and he never forgave any offender.  He went forth one day to hunt and a certain of his pages shot a shaft, which lit on the king’s ear and cut it off.  Bihkard cried, “Who shot that arrow?” So the guards brought him in haste the misdemeanant, whose name was Yatru,[FN#207] and he of his fear fell down on the ground in a fainting fit.  Then quoth the king, “Slay him;” but Yatru said, “O king, this which hath befallen was not of my choice nor of my knowledge; so do thou pardon me, in the hour of thy power over me, for that mercy is of the goodliest of deeds and belike it shall be in this world a provision and a good work for which thou shalt be repaid one of these days, and a treasure laid up to thine account with Allah in the world to come.  Pardon me, therefore, and fend off evil from me, so shall Allah fend off from thee the like evil.”  When the king beard this, it pleased him and he pardoned the page, albeit he had never before pardoned any.  Now this page was of the sons of the kings and had fled from his sire on account of a sin he had committed:  then he went and took service with Bihkard the king, and there happened to him what happened.  After a while, it chanced that a man recognised him and went and told his father, who sent him a letter, comforting his heart and mind and calling upon him to return to him.  Accordingly he returned to his father, who came forth to meet him and rejoiced in him, and the Prince’s affairs were set right with his sire.  Now it befel, one day of the days, that king Bihkard shipped him in a ship and put out to sea, so he might fish:  but the wind blew on them and the craft sank.  The king made the land upon a plank, unknown of any, and came forth, mother-naked, on one of the coasts; and it chanced that he landed in the country whereof the father of the page aforesaid was king.  So he came in the night to the gate of the sovran’s capital, and finding it shut, lodged him in a burying-place there.  When the morning morrowed and the folk came forth of the city, behold, they found a man lately murthered and cast down in a corner of the burial ground, and seeing Bihkard there, doubted not but it was he who had slain him during the night; so they laid hands on him and carried him up to the king and said to him, “This fellow hath slain a man.”  The king bade imprison him; whereupon they threw him in jail, and he fell to saying in himself, what while he was in the prison, “All that hath befallen me is of the abundance of my sins and my tyranny, for, indeed, I have slain much people unrighteously and this is the requital of my deeds and that which I have wrought whilome of oppression.”  As he was thus pondering in himself, there came a bird and lighted down on the pinnacle of the prison, whereupon, of his passing eagerness in the chase, he took a stone and threw