Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 7.djvu/28

10 for this [her speech]. Moreover, the love of her redoubled on him and entered his inmost heart, and he knew that she loved him as he loved her and desired to abide with him, that she might see his child by her.

Then Julnar called for food and the waiting women laid the tables and set on all kinds of viands, which had been dressed in the kitchen under her own eyes, and fruits and sweetmeats, of which she ate, she and her kinsfolk. But, presently, they said to her, ‘O Julnar, thy lord is a stranger to us, and we have entered his house, without his leave or knowledge. Thou hast extolled to us his excellence and hast set before us of his victual and we have eaten; yet have we not companied with him nor seen him, neither hath he seen us nor come to our presence and eaten with us, so bread and salt might be between us.’ And they all left eating and were wroth with her, and fire issued from their mouths, as from cressets; which when the king saw, he was transported for excess of fear of them. But Julnar soothed them and going to the closet where was the king her lord, said to him, ‘O my lord, hast thou seen and heard how I praised thee and extolled thee to my people and what they said to me of their desire to carry me away with them?’ ‘I both heard and saw,’ answered he. ‘May God abundantly requite thee for me! By Allah, I knew not the measure of thine affection for me until this blessed hour and I doubted not of thy love of me!’

‘O my lord,’ rejoined she, ‘is the reward of kindness aught but kindness? Verily, thou hast dealt generously with me and hast entreated me with worship and done me all manner of honour and kindness and preferred me above all thou lovest and desirest, and I have seen that thou lovest me with the utmost love. So how should my heart be content to leave thee and depart from thee, after all thy goodness to me? But now I desire of thy courtesy