Page:Edmund Dulac's picture-book for the French Red cross.djvu/158

THE LADY BADOURA horse's hoofs. Many he met who had heard of a prince afar who was mad for the love of one unknown, but none could pilot him to that prince's dwelling-place. At last it was the wing of chance—the certainty of talismans—that brought him to the feet of Camaralzaman. Through perilous adventure, ending in shipwreck, he found him and told him all. How they contrived their sudden flight and passage across land and sea I leave to your own thoughts, O King of the Age, for thou knowest in thy wisdom that, where none can find a way. Love will find a way.

So it transpired one day that the forty heads relieved of wisdom looked down approvingly upon a youthful astrologer beating with his staff upon the palace gates.

'By Allah!' cried the janitor on opening to him. 'Thou art in a mighty hurry to quit this life so soon.'

'Nay, I come to heal the Lady Badoura of her malady. Let me in, and that quickly!'

He had his will. Then, step by step, each step an age, he followed up and up to the lonely tower. His hair seemed turning grey before he was admitted; but no sooner had he crossed the threshold than Badoura, with a cry of joy, rose and broke her golden chain, and sped to his arms, where she lay in bliss, pouring out her soul in sobs and kisses.

The cure was immediate. The king came in haste and saw in a moment that she was healed beyond the wildest hope of the forty bleached heads.

'Allah be praised!' he cried on seeing her face aglow and her eyes a-dancing with delight. 'There is indeed no god but Allah! For I perceive that He hath restored my daughter's reason.'

'Nay, my father,' returned she, 'Allah hath restored thy daughter's husband: her reason was never lacking.' And when, in proof of her words, she had shown the astonished king her own ring upon the finger of Camaralzaman, and his upon hers, she clung to her husband in an ecstasy of joy, returning his ardent kisses again and again and again. 108