Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 2.djvu/360

323 of him, for what he saw of his tender years and his condition, which was that of a poor man. So he said to him, “O youth, of what tribe art thou and to whom art thou kin among the Arabs? What is thy history and wherefore goest thou by night, after the fashion of champions? Indeed, thou spokest to me in the night words such as are spoken of none but magnanimous cavaliers and lionhearted warriors; and now thy life is in my hand. But I have compassion on thee by reason of thy tender age; so I will make thee my companion, and thou shalt go with me, to do me service.” When Kanmakan heard him speak thus unseemly, after what he had shown him of skill in verse, he knew that he despised him and thought to presume with him; so he answered him with soft and dulcet speech, saying, “O chief of the Arabs, leave my tenderness of age and tell me thy story and why thou wanderest by night in the desert, reciting verses. Thou talkest of my serving thee; who then art thou and what moved thee to speak thus?” “Harkye, boy!” answered the Bedouin, “I am Subbah, son of Remmah ben Hummam. My people are of the Arabs of Syria, and I have a cousin called Nejmeh, who brings delight to all that look on her. My father died, and I was brought up in the house of my uncle, the father of Nejmeh; but when I grew up and my cousin became a woman, they excluded her from me and me from her, seeing that I was poor and of little estate. However, the chiefs of the Arabs and the heads of the tribes went in to her father and rebuked him, and he was abashed before them and consented to give me his daughter, but upon condition that I should bring him as her dower fifty head of horses and fifty dromedaries and fifty camels laden with wheat and a like number laden with barley, together with ten male and ten female slaves. The dowry he imposed upon me was beyond my competence; for he exacted more than the due marriage