Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/245

215 Presently, the girl’s master entered the school and finding the tablet, read the above verses and wrote under them the following:

Then he sent for the Cadi and the witnesses and married them on the spot. Moreover, he made them a marriage-feast and entreated them with exceeding munificence; and they abode together in joy and contentment, till there came to them the Destroyer of Delights and the Sunderer of Companies. EL MUTELEMMIS AND HIS WIFE UMEIMEH.

It is related that El Mutelemmis once fled from En Numan ben Mundhir and was absent so long that the folk deemed him dead. Now he had a handsome wife, Umeimeh by name, and her family pressed her to marry again; but she refused, for that she loved her husband El Mutelemmis very dearly. However, they were instant with her, because of the multitude of her suitors, and importuned her till she at last reluctantly consented and they married her to a man of her own tribe.

On the night of the wedding, El Mutelemmis came back and hearing in the camp a noise of pipes and tabrets and seeing signs of festival, asked some of the children what was toward, to which they replied, ‘They have married Umeimeh, widow of El Mutelemmis, to such an one, and he goes in to her this night.’ When he heard this, he made shift to enter the house with the women and saw