' 'Harkye, then,' said Jaafer,
'and I will give thee a prescription, which I have given to
none but thee.' 'What is that?' asked the Bedouin; and Jaafer
answered, 'Take three ounces of wind-wafts and the like of
sunbeams and moonshine and lamp-light; mix them together and
let them lie in the wind three months. Then bray them three
months in a mortar without a bottom and laying them in a cleft
platter, set it in the wind other three months; after which use
three drachms every night in thy sleep, and (God willing) thou
shalt be cured.'
When the Bedouin heard this, he stretched himself out on the
ass's back and letting fly a terrible great crack of wind, said
to Jaafer, 'Take this, in payment of thy prescription. When I
have followed it, if God grant me recovery, I will give thee a
slave-girl, who shall serve thee in thy lifetime a service,
wherewith God shall cut short thy term; and when thou diest and
God hurries thy soul to the fire, she shall blacken thy face
with her ordure, of her mourning for thee, and lament and
buffet her face, saying, "O frosty-beard, what a ninny thou
wast!"'[FN#125] The Khalif laughed till he fell backward, and
ordered the Bedouin three thousand dirhems.
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