Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/188

160 perilous for thee to meddle with it.’ Now the prince had told his father of his adventure with the King’s daughter of Senaa, and he said, ‘If the King had been minded to kill thee, he had done so; but thine hour was not yet come.’

When the rejoicings were at an end, the people returned to their houses and the King and his son to the palace, where they sat down and fell to eating and drinking and making merry. Now the King had a handsome slave-girl, who was skilled in playing upon the lute; so she took it and began to play upon it and sing thereto of separation of lovers before the King and his son, and she chanted the following verses:

When the prince heard this, the fires of longing flamed up in his heart and passion redoubled upon him. Grief and regret were sore upon him and his entrails yearned in him for love of the King’s daughter of Senaa; so he rose forthright and eluding his father’s notice, went forth the palace to the horse and mounting it, turned the peg of ascent, whereupon it flew up into the air with him and soared towards the confines of the sky. Presently, his father missed him and going up to the summit of the palace, in great concern, saw the prince rising into the air; whereat he was sore afflicted and repented exceedingly that he had not taken the horse and hidden it: and he said in himself, ‘By Allah, if but my son return to me, I will destroy the horse, that my heart may be at rest concerning my son.’ And he fell again to weeping and bewailing himself for his son.

Meanwhile, the prince flew on through the air till he came to the city of Senaa and alighted on the roof as before. Then he went down stealthily and finding the eunuch asleep, as of wont, raised the curtain and went on,