Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 2.djvu/126

99 wilt.” Quoth he, “Folk use to name their children on the seventh day.” Then he bent down to kiss the child and saw, hung about her neck, a jewel, which he knew at once for one of those that the princess Abrizeh had brought from the land of the Greeks. At this sight, his senses fled, his eyes rolled and wrath seized on him, and he looked at Nuzhet ez Zeman and said to her, “O damsel, whence hadst thou this jewel?” When she heard this, she replied, “I am thy lady and the lady of all in thy palace. Art thou not ashamed to say to me, ‘O damsel’? Indeed, I am a queen, the daughter of a king; and now concealment shall cease and the truth be made known. I am Nuzhet ez Zeman, daughter of King Omar ben Ennuman.” When Sherkan heard this, he was seized with trembling and bowed his head towards the earth, whilst his heart throbbed and his colour paled, for he knew that she was his sister by the same father. Then he lost his senses; and when he revived, he abode in amazement, but did not discover himself to her and said to her, “O my lady, art thou indeed the daughter of King Omar ben Ennuman?” “Yes,” replied she; and he said, “Tell me how thou camest to leave thy father and be sold for a slave.” So she told him all that had befallen her, from first to last, how she had left her brother sick in Jerusalem and how the Bedouin had lured her away and sold her to the merchant. When Sherkan heard this all was certified that she was indeed his sister, he said to himself, “How can I have my sister to wife? By Allah, I must marry her to one of my chamberlains; and if the thing get wind, I will avouch that I divorced her before consummation and married her to my chief chamberlain.” Then he raised his head and said, “O Nuzhet ez Zeman, thou art my very sister; for I am Sherkan, son of King Omar ben Ennuman, and may God forgive us the sin into which we have fallen!” She looked