Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 3.djvu/82

64 Then he said, ‘O Aboulhusn, I am smitten with an affliction, from which I deemed myself in surety, and there is no greater ease for me than death.’ ‘Be patient,’ answered his friend: ‘peradventure God will heal thee.’ Then he went out from him and repairing to his shop, opened it, nor had he sat long, when up came Shemsennehar’s handmaid, who saluted him. He returned her salute and looking at her, saw that her heart was palpitating and that she was troubled and bore the traces of affliction: so he said to her, ‘Thou art welcome. How is it with Shemsennehar?’ ‘I will tell thee,’ answered she; ‘but first tell me how doth Ali ben Bekkar.’ So he told her all that had passed, whereat she was grieved and sighed and lamented and marvelled at his case. Then said she, ‘My lady’s case is still stranger than this; for when you went away, I turned back, troubled at heart for you and hardly crediting your escape, and found her lying prostrate in the pavilion, speaking not nor answering any, whilst the Commander of the Faithful sat by her head, unknowing what aided her and finding none who could give him news of her. She ceased not from her swoon till midnight, when she revived and the Khalif said to her, “What ails thee, O Shemsennehar, and what has befallen thee this night?” “May God make me thy ransom, O Commander of the Faithful!” answered she. “Verily, bile rose in me and lighted a fire in my body, so that I lost my senses for excess of pain, and I know no more.” “What hast thou eaten to-day?” asked the Khalif. Quoth she, “I broke my fast on something I had never before eaten.” Then she feigned to be recovered and calling for wine, drank it and begged the Khalif to resume his diversion. So he sat down again on his couch in the pavilion and made her sit as before. When she saw me, she asked me how you fared; so I told her what I had done with you and repeated to her the verses that Ali ben Bekkar had recited at parting,