Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 7.djvu/241

219 When I am dead, I prithee write, ’fore Allah, on my tomb, ‘A slave of passion lieth here, who died of love in vain.’ It may be one, whom love like me hath smitten, passing by, Shall see my tomb and to salute and pity me be fain.

Then Queen Nour el Huda commanded that all the girls in the city should come up to the palace and pass in review before Hassan and bade Shewahi go down and bring them up herself. So all the maidens in the city presented themselves before the queen, who caused them go in to Hassan, hundred by hundred, till there was no girl left in the place, but she had shown her to him; but he saw not his wife amongst them. Then said she to him, ‘Seest thou her amongst these?’ And he answered, saying, ‘By thy life, O queen, she is not amongst them.’

With this she was sore enraged against him and said to the old woman, ‘Go in and bring out all who are in the palace and show them to him.’ So she showed him all the girls in the palace, but he saw not his wife among them and said to the queen, ‘As thy head liveth, O queen, she is not among these.’ Whereat the queen was wroth and cried out to those about her, saying, ‘Take him and drag him along, face to ground, and cut off his head, lest any adventure himself after him and intrude upon us in our country and tread the soil of our islands and spy out our estate.’ So they threw him down on his face and covering his eyes with his skirt, stood at his head with drawn swords, awaiting permission [to strike].

But Shewahi came forward and kissing the earth before the queen, took her skirt and laid it on her head, saying, ‘O queen, by the claim I have on thee for fosterage, be not hasty with him, more by token of thy knowledge that this poor wretch is a stranger, who hath adventured himself and suffered perils and hardships, such as none ever suffered before him, and God preserved him from death, for that his life was ordained to be long. He