The Wooden Horse-4

One of his courtiers made a suggestion, "We have four mighty warriors in our kingdom. Your

Majesty can send them up to stand at the foot of the four walls of the palace. When the man

turns up, they wil1 he sure to catch him." The king thought this an excellent idea. That

evening he personally took the warriors up and showed them where to hide and keep watch.

When everything was set, the king went down to his palace. But, unfortunately for his plans,

the warriors were inveterate sleepy heads and soon fell asleep at their posts. The little

prince came again and stayed with impunity until dawn.

When the king arrived and weighed the princess, he discovered that she had put on weight

again. He was speechless with rage.

He called in another courtier for consultation. The courtier said, "Why not apply a coat of

paint to the bed and chairs of the princess? Then tomorrow we can search the city and

whoever has paint on his clothes is our man." The king followed his advice and had the

princess' bed, chairs and all her other furniture painted. In the evening the little prince

came again. On his way back, he noticed that his clothes were badly stained with paint, so

he took them off and threw them away.

It so happened that in the town there lived a poor old man who got up before dawn every day

and went from door to door waking people to go to mosque. While he was on his rounds that

day, something dropped from the sky. He picked it up and found it to be a set of very fine

clothes. "I have been serving Allah all my life and this must be my reward!" the old man

thought to himself and took the clothes home.

That evening, when the whole town came to the mosque to pray, the king secretly sent his men

to search for the suspect. The old man who was happily wearing his "reward from Allah" soon

got into trouble. In the middle of the service, he was arres


ted and brought to the king. "Why are your clothes stained with paint?" the king questioned

him. The old man answered, "I picked these clothes up off the ground and they were like this

when I found them." The king didn't believe his story and sent him to prison to be

interrogated under torture. Without much trouble, they managed to extract some sort of

confession from him, and he was sentenced to death by hanging.

The whole town was abuzz with this affair, and everyone was curious to know what this man

was like who had succeeded in getting into the palace in the sky. When they saw this old man

being led to the scaffold, no one thought he could possibly have done it. They began to talk

about the case, and all felt that he must have been