Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 2.djvu/389

352 Bakoun kill him.” And she told her what had passed, from beginning to end. So she rose at once and stayed not for aught, till she came to her son’s lodgings, just as Bakoun was about to slay him. When he awoke, he said to his mother, “O my mother, indeed thou comest at a good time, for my nurse Bakoun has been with me this night.” Then he turned to Bakoun and said to her, “My life on thee, knowest thou any story better than those thou hast told me?” “What I have told thee,” answered she, “is nothing to what I will tell thee; but that must be for another time.” Then she rose to go, hardly believing that she should escape with her life, for she perceived of her cunning that his mother knew what was toward; and he said, “Go in peace.” So she went her way, and his mother said to him, “O my son, blessed be this night, wherein God the Most High hath delivered thee from this accursed woman!” “How so?” asked he, and she told him the whole story. “O my mother,” said he, “whoso is fated to live finds no slayer; nor, though he be slain, will he die; but now it were wise that we depart from amongst these enemies and let God do what He will.” So, as soon as it was day, he left the city and joined the Vizier Dendan, and certain things befell between King Sasan and Nuzhet ez Zeman, which caused her also to leave the city and join herself to Kanmakan and Dendan, as did likewise such of the King’s officers as inclined to their party. Then they took counsel together what they should do and agreed to make an expedition into the land of the Greeks and take their revenge for the death of King Omar ben Ennuman and his son Sherkan. So they set out with this intent and after adventures which it were tedious to set out, but the drift of which will appear from what follows, they fell into the hands of Rumzan, King of the Greeks. Next morning, King Rumzan caused Dendan and Kanmakan and their company to be brought before him