Page:Tales from the Arabic, Vol 3.djvu/186

168 a living soul in the house.’ And she said, ‘An thou be a stranger, thou art he in quest of whom I was going about.’

Then she went up into the house and put off her [walking] clothes and I found her as she were the full moon. I brought her what I had by me of meat and drink and said to her, ‘O my lady, excuse me: this is that which is ready.’ Quoth she, ‘This is abundant kindness and indeed it is what I sought.’ And she ate and gave the slave-girl that which was left; after which I brought her a casting-bottle of rose-water, mingled with musk, and she washed her hands and abode with me till the season of afternoon-prayer, when she brought out of the parcel that she had with her a shirt and trousers and an upper garment and a kerchief wroughten with gold and gave them to me; saying, ‘Know that I am one of the favourites of the Khalif, and we are forty favourites, each one of whom hath a lover who cometh to her as often as she would have him; and none is without a lover save myself, wherefore I came forth to-day to find me a gallant and behold, I have found thee. Thou must know that the Khalif lieth each night with one of us, whilst the other nine-and-thirty favourites take their ease with the nine-and-thirty men, and I would have thee be with me on such a day, when do thou come up to the palace of the Khalif and wait for me in such a place, till a little