Such were the unaccountable caprices of fortune,
which led to the completion of the prophecy, that had destined him to
become one day a parricide. Ibrahim was wont to divert his grief by the
pleasures of the chase; and this exercise soon became almost his only
occupation. One evening that he had strayed, with a very slender escort,
into the defiles of a very solitary mountain, a troop of robbers rushed
upon him. The combat for sometime was furious. An arrow pierced the
king; it excited the spirit of vengeance in his attendants, and they
fought, determined to conquer or die. They were soon victorious. The
murderer was taken, and conducted to the metropolis, that he might
undergo the punishment due to his crime.
Ibrahim, on the bed of death, summoned the astrologers to attend him,
and thus addressed them: "I was to have perished, you told me, by the
hand of a son; but it is the hand of a robber that has inflicted the
blow."--"Sire," answered the sages, "forbear to seek an explanation. The
robber"... They proceed no further. The young robber appears, and
relates his history.
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