Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 7.djvu/194

172 lady, I fear lest the Khalif hear of her and break the law and put her husband to death and take her to wife.’

‘Out on thee, O Tuhfeh!’ rejoined Zubeideh. ‘Is this damsel endowed with such extraordinary grace and beauty that the Commander of the Faithful should, on her account, barter his soul’s good for his worldly pleasure and trangresstransgress [sic] the law! By Allah, I must needs look on her, and if she be not as thou sayest, I will strike off thy head! O baggage, there are in the Khalif’s harem three hundred and threescore slave-girls, after the number of the days of the year, yet is there none amongst them such as thou describest!’ ‘No, by Allah, O my lady!’ answered Tuhfeh. ‘Nor is there her like in all Baghdad; no, nor amongst the Arabs or the barbarians, nor hath God (to whom belong might and majesty) created the like of her!’

Therewith Zubeideh called for Mesrour, who came and kissed the earth before her, and she said to him, ‘O Mesrour, go to the vizier’s house, that with the two gates, one giving on the street and the other on the river, and bring me in haste the damsel who dwells there, with her two children and the old woman who is with her, and tarry not.’ ‘I hear and obey,’ answered Mesrour and repairing to Hassan’s house, knocked at the door. Quoth the old woman, ‘Who is at the door?’ ‘Mesrour,’ answered he, ‘the eunuch of the Commander of the Faithful.’ So she opened the door and he entered and saluted her; whereupon she returned his salute and asked his errand. Quoth he, ‘The lady Zubeideh, daughter of El Casim and wife of the Commander of the Faithful Haroun er Reshid, fifth of the sons of Abbas, uncle of the Prophet (whom God bless and preserve!), bids thee to her, thee and thy son’s wife and her children; for the women have told her of her and her beauty.’ ‘O Mesrour,’ answered the old woman, ‘we are strangers and my son, the girl’s husband, is abroad and hath straitly charged me not to