Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/363

333 good to you.’ So they repaired to the house of the nurse, who received them with open arms and welcomed them. When they had sat awhile with her, they said to her, ‘O nurse, the princess pardons thee and desires to take thee back into favour.’ ‘This may never be,’ answered she, ‘though I drink the cup of perdition! Hast thou forgotten how she put me to shame before those who love me and those who hate me, when my clothes were dyed with my blood and I well-nigh died for excess of beating, and after this they dragged me forth by the feet like a dead dog and cast me without the door? By Allah, I will never return to her nor fill my eyes with her sight!’ Quoth they, ‘Disappoint not our pains in coming to thee neither send us away, unsuccessful. Where is thy courtesy to us? Think but who it is that cometh to thee: canst thou wish for any higher of standing than we with the princess?’ ‘God forbid!’ answered she. ‘I know well that my station is less than yours, were it not that the princess’s favour exalted me above all her women, so that, were I wroth with the greatest of them, she had died of fright.’ ‘All is as it was,’ rejoined they, ‘and is in nowise changed. Indeed, it is better than before, for the princess humbles herself to thee and seeks a reconciliation without intermediary.’ ‘By Allah,’ said the old woman, ‘were it not for your presence [and intercession] with me, I had never returned to her, no, not though she had commanded to put me to death!’ They thanked her for this and she rose and dressing herself, accompanied them to the palace.

When the princess saw her, she rose to her feet and the old woman said, ‘Allah! Allah! O King’s daughter, whose was the fault, thine or mine?’ ‘The fault was mine,’ answered Heyat en Nufous, ‘and it is thine to pardon and forgive. By Allah, O my nurse, thy rank is high with me and thou hast over me the right of fosterage; but thou knowest that God (blessed be He!) hath allotted to His