Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 7.djvu/281

255 Then they took leave of him and went down to their troops, to hearten them. They kept up the fires till the day rose with its light and shone, when the fighting-men mounted their stout horses and smote each other with the edge of the sword and thrust with the brown of the lance; nor did they cease from the battle that day. Moreover, they passed the night on horseback, clashing together like seas; the fires of war raged among them and they stinted not from battle and strife, till the army of Wac was defeated and their power broken and their courage quelled; their feet slipped and whithersoever they fled, defeat was before them; wherefore they turned their backs and betook themselves to flight: but the most part of them were slain and their queen and her chief officers and the grandees of her realm taken prisoners.

On the morrow, the seven kings set Hassan a throne of alabaster inlaid with pearls and jewels, and he sat down thereon. Moreover, they set thereby a throne of ivory, plated with glittering gold, for the princess Menar es Sena and another for the old woman Shewahi. Then they brought before them the captives and among the rest, Queen Nour el Huda bound and shackled, whom when Shewahi saw, she said to her, ‘O harlot, O wicked wretch, thy recompense shall be that two bitches be starved and two horses stinted of water, till they be athirst: then shalt thou be bound, with the bitches after thee, to the horses’ tails and the latter driven to the river, that the bitches may rend thy skin; and after, thy flesh shall be cut off and given them to eat. How couldst thou deal thus with thy sister, O vile woman, seeing that she was lawfully married, after the law of God and of His Apostle? For there is no monkery in Islam and marriage is of the ordinances of the Apostles (on whom be peace!) nor were women created but for men.’

Then Hassan commanded to put all the captives to