The merchant struck him some
blows on the head, and he fell prostrate before him, transformed into a
golden image. Imagining that any other person could, by a similar
behaviour, force any fakir to undergo the like metamorphosis, I invited
these men to a banquet, and regaled them with some blows of my cudgel to
compel them to a similar transformation; but the demon of avarice has
deceived me, and the fascinating temptation of gold has involved me in a
labyrinth of ills."
The governor at once sent for Abdal-Malik, and, demanding a solution of
Hajm's mysterious tale, was thus answered by the charitable merchant:
"The unfortunate Hajm is my neighbour. Some days ago he began to exhibit
symptoms of a disordered imagination and distracted brain, and during
these violent paroxysms of insanity he related some ridiculous fable of
me and the rest of my neighbours. No better specimen can be adduced than
the extravagant action of which he now stands accused, and the absurd
tale by which he attempts to apologise for the commission of it. That
madness may no longer usurp the palace of reason, to revel upon the
ruins of his mind, deliver him to the sons of ingenuity, the preservers
and restorers of health; let them purify his blood by sparing diet,
abridge him of his daily potations, and by the force of medicinal
beverage recall him from the precipice of ruin.
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