Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/57

39 them to the straitest part thereof.’ So I held my peace, but she cried out from behind the curtain, saying, ‘Where is the salutation, that is due from one true believer in the Unity of God and His indivisibility to another, O Khawwas?’ I was astonished at her speech and said, ‘How knowest thou me?’ ‘When the heart and thoughts are pure,’ answered she, ‘the tongue speaks clearly from the secret places of the soul. I besought Him yesterday to send me one of His saints, at whose hands I might have deliverance, and behold, it was cried to me from the recesses of my house, “Grieve not; for we will send thee Ibrahim el Khawwas.”’ Then said I to her, ‘What ails thee?’ ‘It is now four years,’ answered she, ‘since there appeared to me the manifest Truth, and He [or it] is the story-teller, the comrade, the ally; whereupon my folk looked upon me with evil eyes and taxed me with madness, and there came not in to me physician or visitor from them, but terrified and confounded me.’ ‘And who led thee to the knowledge of the true faith?’ asked I. ‘God’s manifest signs and His visible portents,’ replied she; ‘and when the road is patent to thee, thou seest with thine own eyes both proof and prover.’

Whilst we were talking, in came the old man affected to her guard and said to her, ‘What doth thy physician?’ Quoth she, ‘He knoweth the disease and hath hit upon the remedy.’ When he heard this, he manifested joy and gladness and accosted me with a cheerful favour, then went and told the King, who bade him entreat me with all consideration. So I visited her daily for seven days, at the end of which time she said to me, ‘O Abou Ishac, when shall be our flight to the land of Islam?’ ‘How canst thou go forth,’ replied I, ‘and who would dare to attempt thine escape?’ ‘He,’ rejoined she, ‘who sent thee to me.’ ‘Thou sayst well,’ answered I. So on the morrow, we went