Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 3.djvu/78

60 on which she sat and fell to the earth insensible; whereupon the damsels came and lifted her up. When Ali ben Bekkar saw this from the gallery, he also fell down senseless, and Aboulhusn said, ‘Verily Fate hath apportioned passion equally between you!’ As he spoke, in came the damsel who had brought them thither and said to him, ‘O Aboulhusn, arise and come down, thou and thy friend, for of a truth the world is grown strait upon us and I fear lest our case be discovered or the Khalif become aware of you: so, except you descend at once, we are dead folk.’ ‘How shall this youth descend,’ replied he, ‘seeing that he hath not strength to rise?’ With this she fell to sprinkling rose-water on Ali ben Bekkar, till he came to himself, when Aboulhusn lifted him up and the damsel stayed him. So they went down from the gallery and walked on awhile, till they came to a little iron door, which the damsel opened, and they found themselves on the Tigris’ bank. Here they sat down on a stone bench, whilst the girl clapped her hands and there came up a man with a little boat, to whom said she, ‘Carry these two young men to the other bank.’ So they all three entered the boat and the man put off with them; and as they launched out into the stream, Ali ben Bekkar looked back towards the Khalif’s palace and the pavilion and the garden and bade them farewell with these verses:

The damsel said to the boatman, ‘Make haste with them.’ So he plied his oars swiftly till they reached the opposite bank, where they landed, and she took lease of them, saying, ‘It were my wish not to leave you, but I can go no farther than this.’ Then she turned back, whilst Ali ben Bekkar lay on the ground before Aboulhusn and