Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/44

32 he went in to Mesrour, laughing and dissembling his chagrin, and said to him, ‘O Mesrour, let us put off the conclusion of our treaty of brotherhood till another day.’ [sic] ‘As thou wilt,’ replied Mesrour and went away, leaving the Jew pondering his case and knowing not what to do; for his heart was sore troubled and he said in himself, ‘Even the mocking-bird disavows me and the slave-girls shut the door in my face and favour another.’ And of the excess of his chagrin, he fell to reciting the following verses:

When Zein el Mewasif heard this, she trembled in every nerve and said to her handmaid, ‘Heardest thou that?’ Quoth she, ‘I never heard him recite the like of these verses; but let him say what he will.’ Then the Jew, having assured himself of the truth of his suspicions,