Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/108

84 Then I drank a full draught of the cup of its bitters, and humbled was I, and thus to the bondman of Love and its freedman therein was brought low. How many a night have I passed with the loved one, carousing with him, Whilst I drank from his lips what was sweeter than nectar and colder than snow! How short was the life of the nights of our pleasance! It seemed to us still, No sooner was night fallen down than the daybreak to eastward did glow. But Fortune had vowed she would sever our union and sunder our loves; And now, in good sooth, she her vow hath accomplished. Fate ordered it so; Fate ordered it thus, and against its ordaining, appeal there is none; For who shall gainsay a supreme one’s commandments or causes him forego?

Hardly had she made an end of these verses, when Jubeir gave a great cry and fell down in a swoon; whereupon, “May God not punish thee, O old man!” exclaimed the damsel. “This long time have we drunk without music, for fear the like of this should befall our master. But go now to yon chamber and sleep there.” So I went to the chamber in question and slept till the morning, when a page brought me a purse of five hundred dinars and said to me, “This is what my master promised thee; but return thou not to her who sent thee and let it be as if neither thou nor we had heard of this affair.” “I hear and obey,” answered I and taking the purse, went my way.

However, I said in myself, “The lady will have expected me since yesterday; and by Allah, I must needs return to her and tell her what passed between me and him; or she will curse me and all who come from my country.” So I went to her and found her standing behind the door; and when she saw me, she said, “O Ibn Mensour, thou hast gotten me nought.” “Who told thee of this?” asked I; and she answered, “O Ibn Mensour, yet another thing hath been revealed to me; and it is that, when thou gavest him the letter, he tore it in pieces and throwing it