Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/107

89 after the measure of his finger and said to the jeweller, ‘God bless thee, O prince of craftsmen! The setting is conformable [to my wishes], but the stone is not to my liking. I have a handsomer than it: so take the ring and give it to one of thy women.’ Then he gave him a fourth stone and a hundred dinars, saying, ‘Take thy hire and pardon me the trouble I have given thee.’ ‘O merchant,’ answered Ubeid, ‘all the trouble thou hast given us thou hast requited us and hast overwhelmed us with thy bounties: and indeed my heart is taken with love of thee and I cannot brook parting from thee. So, God on thee, be thou my guest this night and heal my heart.’ ‘So be it,’ replied Kemerezzeman; ‘but needs must I go to my khan, that I may give a charge to my servants and tell them that I shall sleep abroad to-night, so they may not expect me.’ ‘Where dost thou lodge?’ asked the jeweller; and he answered, ‘In such a khan.’ Quoth Ubeid, ‘I will come for thee there.’ And Kemerezzeman said, ‘Good.’

So the jeweller repaired to the khan before sundown, fearing lest his wife should be wroth with him, if he returned home without Kemerezzeman, and carrying him to his house, seated him in a saloon that had not its match. Helimeh saw him, as he entered, and was ravished with him. They talked till the evening-meal came, when they ate and drank; after which came coffee and sherbets, and the jeweller ceased not to entertain him with talk till evensong, when they prayed the ordained prayers. Then in came a handmaid with two cups of [diet-]drink, which when they had drunk, drowsiness overcame them and they slept. Presently in came the jeweller’s wife and seeing them asleep, looked upon Kemerezzeman’s face and was confounded at his beauty. ‘How can he sleep who loves the fair?’ said she, and turning him over on his back, bestrode his breast. Then, in the rage of her passion for