Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 7.djvu/172

152 compassion for him; so she said to him, ‘O my brother, take comfort and be of good cheer, for I will venture my life to content thee and contrive thee a device wherewith thou mayst get possession of her and accomplish thy desire, if it be the will of God, though it cost me my life and all I hold dear. But I charge thee keep the matter secret and discover not thy case to any of my sisters, lest we both lose our lives. If they question thee of the forbidden door, answer them, “I opened it not, being troubled at heart for your absence and my loneliness here and yearning for you.”’ And he replied, ‘Yes: this is the right course.’ So he kissed her head and his heart was comforted and his bosom dilated, and his life returned to him, after he had been nigh upon death for excess of affright, for he had gone in fear of her by reason of his having opened the forbidden door.

Then he sought food of her [and she set it before him]; after which she left him and went in to her sisters, weeping and mourning for him. They questioned her of her case and she told them how she was heavy at heart for her brother, for that he was sick and for ten days no food had entered his stomach. So they enquired the cause of his sickness and she said, ‘The cause was our absence from him and our leaving him desolate; for these days we have been absent from him were longer to him than a thousand years, and no wonder, seeing he is a stranger, and solitary and we left him alone, with none to company with him or cheer his heart; more by token that he is but a youth and it is like he called to mind his family and his mother, who is an old woman, and bethought him that she weeps for him all tides of the day and watches of the night; and we used to solace him with our society and divert him from thinking of her.’

When her sisters heard this, they wept in the excess of their sorrow for him and said, ‘’Fore Allah, he is