The Man in the Panther's Skin: XXIX. The Story of Avt’handil's Arrival in Gulansharo

Thither came the gardener of him at whose garden they had landed; with ecstasy he gazes at the knight's face flashing like lightning. Avt’handil hailed him, he spoke to the man with faultless words: "Whose men are ye, who are ye? how call they the king reigning here?

"Tell me all in detail," quoth the knight to that man; "what stuff is dearer, or what is bought up cheap?" He said: "I see, thy face seems to me like the face of the sun. Whatever I know I will tell thee truly; I will by no means inform thee crookedly.

"His duty it is to receive such honourable folk as you, he orders the caterers how to entertain them fitly; he is not now here, what avails it me to speak of him To meet you and carry you away with him, pressing you politely, is the way he should treat you.

"P’hatman Khat’hun, the lady, his wife, is at home, a hospitable hostess, amiable, not rough. I shall inform her of your arrival, she will take you in as one of her own folk, she will send a man to meet you, you shall enter the city by daylight."

Avt’handil said: "Go, do whatever thou desirest." The gardener runs, he rejoices, sweat pours down to his breast. He tells his tidings to the lady: "I boast of this: a youth comes, to them that look on him his rays seem like the sun.

"He is some merchant, chief of a great caravan, well-grown like a cypress, a moon of seven days, his coat and the fold of his coral-hued turban become him; he called me, asked me tidings and the tariff for the purchase of goods."

Dame P’hatman rejoiced; she sent ten slaves to meet him; they prepared the caravanserais, she stored their wares. The rose-cheeked, crystal and ruby, glass, jet, entered; they who looked on him compared his feet to the panther's, his palms to the lion's (paws).

There was a hubbub, the hosts of the town all

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