Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/239

211 But I bethought me and said, “How shall I intrude on him with questioning, and I in his abode?” So I restrained myself and ate my sufficiency of the meat. When we had made an end of eating, the young man arose and entering the tent, brought out an elegant basin and ewer and a silken napkin, fringed with broidery of red gold, and a casting-bottle full of rose-water, mingled with musk. I marvelled at his elegance and the daintiness of his fashion and said in myself, “Never knew I of elegance in the desert.” Then we washed our hands and talked awhile, after which he went into the tent and making a partition between himself and me with a piece of red brocade, said to me, “Enter, O chief of the Arabs, and take thy rest; for thou hast suffered toil and travel galore this night and in this thy journey.” So I entered and finding a bed of green brocade, pulled off my clothes and passed a night such as I had never passed in my life.

I lay, pondering the young man’s case, till it was dark night and all eyes slept, when I was aroused by the sound of a low voice, never heard I a softer or sweeter. I raised the curtain and saw, by the young man’s side, a damsel, never beheld I a fairer of face, and they were both weeping and complaining, one to the other, of the pangs of passion and desire and of the excess of their longing for each other’s sight. “By Allah,” quoth I, “I wonder who this can be! When I entered this tent, there was none therein but this young man. Doubtless this damsel is of the daughters of the Jinn and is enamoured of this youth; so they have secluded themselves with one another in this place.” Then I considered her attentively and behold, she was a mortal and an Arab girl, whose face, when she unveiled it, put to shame the shining sun, and the tent was illumined by the light of her countenance. When I was assured that she was his mistress, I bethought me of a lover’s jealousy; so I let fall the curtain and covering my