Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 2.djvu/359

322 “Thou seduced by passion for us,” quoth she, and I, “God keep Thy lovers all! How many have fallen to thy spear?” If mine eyes taste the pleasance of sleep, while she’s afar, May God deny their vision her beauties many a year! O the wound in mine entrails! I see no cure for it Save love-delight and kisses from crimson lips and clear.

When Kanmakan heard this, yet saw no one, he knew that the speaker was a lover like unto himself, debarred the company of her whom he loved; and he said to himself, “It were fitting that this man should lay his head to mine and become my comrade in this my strangerhood.” Then he hailed the speaker and cried out to him, saying, “O thou that goest in the sombre night, draw near to me and tell me thy history. Haply thou shalt find in me one who will succour thee in thine affliction.” “O thou that answerest my complaint and wouldst know my history,” rejoined the other, “who art thou amongst the cavaliers? Art thou a man or a genie? Answer me speedily ere thy death draw near, for these twenty days have I wandered in this desert and have seen no one nor heard any voice but thine.” When Kanmakan heard this, he said to himself, “His case is like unto mine, for I also have wandered twenty days in the desert and have seen none nor heard any voice: but I will make him no answer till the day.” So he was silent and the other called out to him, saying, “O thou that callest, if thou be of the Jinn, go in peace, and if thou be a man, stay awhile, till the day break and the night flee with the dark.” So they abode each in his own place, reciting verses and weeping with abundant tears, till the light of day appeared and the night departed with the darkness. Then Kanmakan looked at the other and found him a youth of the Bedouin Arabs, clad in worn clothes and girt with a rusty sword, and the signs of passion were apparent on him. So he went up to him and accosting him, saluted him. The Bedouin returned the salute and greeted him courteously, but made little account