Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/257

229 When she heard this, she looked at me askance and said, ‘Could not thy breast hold the secret that was between us an hour, but thou must discover it to this man?’ But I swore to her [that I had not told him] and excused myself to her and fell to kissing her hands and tickling her breasts and biting her cheeks, till she laughed and turning to the blind man, said to him, ‘Sing, O my lord!’ So he took the lute and sang as follows:

So I said to her, ‘O my lady, who can have told him what we were about.’ ‘True,’ answered she, and we removed to a distance from him. Presently quoth he, ‘I have a need to make water.’ And I said, ‘O boy, take the candle and go before him.’ Then he went out and tarried a long while. So we went in search of him, but could not find him; and behold, the doors were locked and the keys in the closet, and we knew not whether he had flown up to heaven or sunk into the earth. Wherefore I knew that he was Iblis and that he had done me a pander’s office and returned, recalling to myself the words of Abou Nuwas in the following verses:

THE LOVERS OF MEDINA.

[Quoth Ibrahim Abou Ishac], I was once in my house, when one knocked at the door; so my servant went out and returned, saying, ‘A comely youth is at the door, seeking admission.’ I bade admit him and there came in to me a young man, on whom were traces of sickness,