Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/122

110 O my lord Noureddin,’ added she, ‘if thou desire to avert separation, be on thy guard against a swart-visaged, bushy-bearded old Frank, blind of the right eye and lame of the left leg; for he it is who will be the cause of our separation. I saw him enter the city [to-day] and methinks he is come hither in quest of me.’ ‘O lady of fair ones,’ replied Noureddin, ‘if my eyes light on him, I will slay him and make an example of him.’ ‘O my lord,’ rejoined she, ‘slay him not; but talk not nor trade with him, neither buy nor sell with him nor sit nor walk with him nor speak one word to him, no, not even to make the prescribed answer, and I pray God to keep us from his craft and mischief!’

Next morning, Noureddin carried the girdle to the market, where he sat down on a bench before a shop and talked with the young merchants, till drowsiness overcame him and he lay down on the bench and fell asleep. Presently, up came the Frank whom the damsel had described to him, in company of seven others, and seeing Noureddin lying asleep on the bench, with his head wrapped in the kerchief which Meryem had made him and the end thereof in his hand, sat down by him and took the end of the kerchief in his hand and examined it. This disturbed Noureddin and he awoke and seeing the very man sitting by him of whom Meryem had warned him, cried out at him with a great cry, that startled him. Quoth the Frank, ‘What ails thee to cry out thus at us? Have we taken aught from thee?’ ‘By Allah, O accursed one,’ replied Noureddin, ‘hadst thou taken aught from me, I would hale thee before the master of police!’

Then said the Frank, ‘O Muslim, I conjure thee by thy faith and by that in which thou believest, tell me whence