Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 3.djvu/215

195 The mirage is their lustre of teeth, and to their eyes The horror of all darkness the kohl that keeps them bright. My crime against them (hateful their nature is!) is but The sword’s crime, when the sworder sets on into the fight.

Then he sobbed and said:

When he had made an end of these verses, he clipped his brother in his arms, till they seemed as it were one body, and the treasurer, raising his sword, was about to strike them, when, behold, his horse took fright at the wind of his upraised hand and breaking its tether, fled into the desert. Now the horse was worth a thousand dinars and on his back was a splendid saddle, worth much money: so the treasurer threw down his sword, in great concern, and ran after him, to catch him. The horse galloped on, snorting and neighing and pawing the earth in his fright, till he raised a cloud of dust, and presently coming to a wood, fled into the midst of it, whither