Having said thus, the two Afreets immediately hurled the terrace and large stones into the well, which crushed the ungrateful and envious Abou Neeuteen to atoms.  Some days after this, the good Abou Neeut, finding he did not return, repaired to the well, and seeing it fallen in, ordered it to be cleared; when the discovery of the body proved to him that the malicious spirit of the wretch had been the cause of his own destruction.  He with reverence exclaimed, “There is no refuge but with the Almighty; may he preserve us from envy, which is destructive to the envious alone!”

Abou Neeut returned to the capital, where, not long after, his father-in-law the sultan dying, left him heir to his kingdom.  His succession was disputed by the husbands of the two elder sisters of his wife; but the ministers and people being in favour of the sultan’s will, they resigned their pretensions and submitted to his authority.  His wife being brought to bed of a son, her sisters bribed the midwife to pretend that the sultana had produced a dog.  They did the same by another son.  At the third lying-in of the sultana Abou Neeut resolved to be present, and a beautiful princess appeared.  The two infant princes having been thrown at the gate of one of the royal palaces, were taken up by the gardener and his wife, who brought them up as their own.  Abou Neeut in visiting the garden with his daughter, who shewed an instinctive affection for them, from this, and their martial play with each other (having made horses of clay, bows and arrows, &c.), was induced to inquire of the gardener whether they were really his own children.  The gardener upon this related the circumstance of his having found them exposed at the gate of the palace, and mentioned the times, which agreed exactly with those of the sultana’s delivery.  Abou Neeut then questioned the midwife, who confessed the imposition and wickedness of the sisters, whom he left to be punished by the pangs of their own consciences, convinced that envy is its own severest tormentor.  The young princes were acknowledged; and the good Abou Neeut had the satisfaction of seeing them grow up to follow his example.

Adventure of A courtier, related by
himself to his patron, an ameer of Egypt.

It is related by an historian that there was an ameer of the land of Egypt, whose mind being one night unusually disturbed, he sent for one of his courtiers, a convivial companion, and said to him, “To-night my bosom, from what cause I know not, is uncommonly restless, and I wish thee to divert me by some amusing narrative.”  The courtier replied, “To hear is to obey:  I will describe an adventure which I encountered in the youthful part of my life.”