Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 3.djvu/112

94 everything there is an end, and the end of love is death or enjoyment. I am nearer unto death, would I had died ere this befell! For, had not God favoured us, we had been discovered and put to shame. And now I know not what shall deliver me from this my strait, and were it not that I fear God, I would hasten my own death; for know, O my brother, that I am like the bird in the cage and that my life is of a surety perished, by reason of the distresses that have befallen me; yet hath it a fixed period and an appointed term.’ And he wept and groaned and repeated the following verses:

When he had finished, I said to him, ‘O my lord, I would fain return to my house; it may be the damsel will come back to me with news.’ ‘It is well,’ answered he; ‘go and return to me speedily with news, for thou seest my condition.’ So I took leave of him and went home. Hardly had I sat down, when up came the damsel, choked with her tears. ‘What is the matter?’ asked I, and she said, ‘O my lord, what we feared has fallen on us; for, when I returned yesterday to my lady, I found her enraged with one of the two maids who were with us the other night, and she ordered her to be beaten. The girl took fright and ran away; but one of the gate-keepers stopped her and would have sent her back to her mistress. However, she let fall some hints, which excited his curiosity; so he coaxed her and led her on to talk, and she acquainted him with our case. This came to the ears of the Khalif, who bade remove my mistress and all her gear to his own palace and set over her a guard of twenty eunuchs. Since then he has not visited her nor given her to know the cause of his action, but I suspect this to be