his flocks and herds, and all other such whereof he was seized.  Also bidding and forbiddal were left in the youth’s hand and he was promoted and preferred by the monarch like his maternal uncle and even more, whilst the ex-Wazir took his rest in retirement, nor was it his habit to visit the King save once after a while, when he would fare forth to salute him with the salam and forthwith return home.  But when Nadan made sure of all commandment being in his own hand, he jeered in public at his uncle and raised his nose at him and fell to blaming him whenever he made act of presence and would say, “Verily Haykar is in age and dotage and no more he wotteth one thing from other thing.”  Furthermore he fell to beating the negro slaves and the handmaidens, and to vending the steeds and dromedaries and applied him wilfully to waste all that appertained to his uncle who, when he saw this lack of ruth for the chattels and the household, incontinently drove him ignominiously from his place.  Moreover he sent to apprize the King thereof; to wit, that he would assuredly[FN#30] resume all his belongings and provision; and his liege, summoning Nadan, said to him, “So long as Haykar, shall be in life, let none lord it over his household or meddle with his fortune.”  On this wise the youth’s hand was stayed from his uncle and from all his good and he ceased to go in to him and come out from him, and even to accost him with the salam.  Presently Haykar repented of the pains and the trouble he had taken with Nadan and he became perplext exceedingly.  Now the youth had a younger brother, Naudan[FN#31] hight, so Haykar adopted him in lieu of the other and tendered him and honoured him with highmost honour and committed to him all his possessions and created him comptroller of his household and of his affairs.  But when the elder brother beheld what had betided him, he was seized with envy and jealousy and he fell to complaining before all who questioned him, deriding his benefactor; and he would say, “Verily my maternal uncle hath driven me from his doors and hath preferred my brother before me; but, an Almighty Allah empower me, I will indeed cast him into doom of death.”  Hereat he fell to brooding over the ruin of his relative, and after a long while he went, one day of the days, and wrote a letter to Akhyash Abna Shah,[FN#32] physician to the King of Persia and ’Ajam or Barbaria-land, and the following were its contents.  “All salams that befit and greetings that are meet from part of Sankharib, King of Assyria and Niniveh, and from his Wazir and Secretary Haykar unto thee, O glorious monarch, and salutations be betwixt me and thee.  And forthright, when this missive shall have reached thee, do thou arise in haste and come to meet me and let our trysting-place be the Buk’at Nisrin, the Lowland of the Eglantine[FN#33] of Assyria and Niniveh, that I may commit to thee the kingdom sans fight or fray.”  Furthermore he wrote a second letter in Haykar’s name to Pharaoh,[FN#34]