بخش 66 - تمامی قصهٔ آن فقیر و نشان جای آن گنج

This is what was written in the scroll—“Know that outside of the town a treasure is buried.

(Go to) such-and-such a domed building in which there is a martyr's shrine, with its back to the town and its gate towards the desert.

Turn your back to it and face the qibla (Mecca) and then let loose an arrow from your bow.

When you have shot the arrow from your bow, O fortunate one, dig up the place where your arrow fell.”

Thereupon the youth fetched a strongbow and let fly an arrow into the expanse of (aerial) space,

And quickly and with great joy brought a pick-axe and mattock and dug up the spot where his arrow had fallen;

(But) both he and the mattock and pick-axe were worn out (in vain efforts), and he found not even a trace of the hidden treasure.

Every day in like fashion he was shooting arrows, but never getting to know the situation of the treasure.

Since he made this his continual practice, a whispered rumour arose in the city and (among) the people.