tedium of the journey. The corn of the field you passed," continued the
girl, "was already eaten if the owner was poor, and had sold it before it
was reaped. The lofty and stately tower was in ruins within, if it was
without necessary stores. About the funeral, too, his remark was true. If
the old man left a son, he was still alive; if he was childless, he was,
indeed, dead."

In the morning, the girl asked her father to give the officer the food
she would prepare. She gave him thirty eggs, a dish full of milk, and a
whole loaf. "Tell me," said she, "how many days old the month is; is the
moon new, and the sun at its zenith?" Her father ate two eggs, a little
of the loaf, and sipped some of the milk, and gave the rest to the
officer. "Tell thy daughter," he said, "the sun is not full, neither is
the moon, for the month is two days old." "Ah," laughed the peasant, as
he told his daughter the answers of the officer, "ah, my girl, I told you
he was a fool, for we are now in the middle of the month." "Did you eat
anything of what I gave you?" asked the girl of her father. And he told
her of the two eggs, the morsel of bread, and the sip of milk that he had
taken. "Now I know," said the girl, "of a surety that the man is very
wise." And the officer, too, felt that she was wise, and so he told her
the king's dream. She went back with him to the king, for she told the
officer that she could interpret the vision, but would do so only to the
king in person, not through a deputy. "Search thy harem," said the girl,
"and thou wilt find among thy women a man disguised in female garb." He
searched, and found that her words were true. The man was slain, and the
women, too, and the peasant's daughter became the king's sole queen, for
he never took another wife besides her.


THE NIGHT'S REST