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 THE LADY BADOURA

A TALE FROM

THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS

The Lady Badoura, Princess of China, the daughter of King Gaiour, Lord of all the Seas and of the Seven Palaces! O King! There was none like her in all the world! Her hair was as dark as the night of separation and exile; her face was like the dawn when lovers meet to embrace; her cheeks were like petals of the anemone filled with wine. When she spoke music was born again on earth; when she moved her feet seemed to faint with delight under the burden of grace and loveliness laid upon them. The seven palaces of the king, with gardens like the inmost courts of Paradise, were splendid and wonderful beyond the poet's art to describe, but, without the dazzling beauty of Badoura's presence, they were as a houri's eyes without their lovelight—an empty and lifeless shade. And this all who beheld her in that sphere were destined to discover.

For, O King of the Age, it was as it were but yesterday that the Lady Badoura reclined in a palace of gold, jewel-encrusted; her couch was of ivory, gold-inwrought; and on the air, fragrant with a thousand perfumes, floated the silvery voice of the slave-girl, singing of love. But to-day, O King, the Lady Badoura was a prisoner in a lonely tower, attended by ten old women long deaf to songs of love. And the cause of this I will relate to you.

For several years the king, through his tender regard for her slightest wish, had left her to bestow her heart and hand of her own free accord upon some worthy suitor; but she had clung tenaciously to her freedom, rejecting all suitors—even the most powerful princes in the land. The king was sorely troubled at this, for Badoura was

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