Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/168

156 and plains, when they came to a wide champaign, abounding in herbs and fruits of all kinds. Therein were gazelles frisking and birds singing lustily on the branches: its slopes for flowers were like serpents’ bellies and many and various were its channels of running water. And indeed it was as saith the poet and saith well and accomplisheth desire:

And as saith another:

Here the two lovers alighted to rest and turning the horses loose to pasture in the valley, ate of its fruits and drank of its streams; after which they sat talking and recalling all that had befallen them and complaining one to the other of the anguish of separation and of that which they had suffered for estrangement and love-longing. As they were thus engaged, there arose in the distance a cloud of dust, which spread till it walled the world, and they heard the neighing of horses and clank of arms.

Now the reason of this was, that the king had gone forth at daybreak, to give the vizier and his daughter