Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/129

109 him he said to him, ‘What girl is this?’ ‘It is my slave-girl,’ answered Ubeid, ‘who used to serve us with wine; she hath disobeyed her mistress, who is wroth with her and hath bidden me sell her.’ Quoth Kemerezzeman, ‘If her mistress have taken an aversion to her, there is no abiding for her with her; but sell her to me, that I may smell your scent in her, and I will make her handmaid to my slave Helimeh.’ ‘Good,’ answered Ubeid. ‘Take her.’ ‘What is her price?’ asked Kemerezzeman. But the jeweller said, ‘I will take nothing from thee, for thou hast been bountiful to us.’

So he accepted her from him and said to Helimeh, ‘Kiss thy lord’s hand.’ Accordingly, she came out from the litter and kissing Ubeid’s hand, remounted, whilst he looked at her. Then said Kemerezzeman, ‘I commend thee to God, O Master Ubeid! Acquit me of responsibility.’ ‘God acquit thee,’ answered the jeweller, ‘and bring thee in safety to thy family!’ Then he bade him farewell and went to his shop, weeping, and indeed it was grievous to him to part from Kemerezzeman, for that he had been his friend and friendship hath its claims; yet he rejoiced in the dispelling of the doubts that had betided him concerning his wife, since the young man was now gone and his suspicions had not been confirmed.

Meanwhile Helimeh said to her lover, ‘If thou wish for safety, travel by other than the accustomed road.’ ‘I hear and obey,’ answered he and taking a road other than that commonly used, fared on, without ceasing, till he reached the confines of Egypt and sent his father a letter by a runner. Now Abdurrehman was sitting in the market among the merchants, with a heart on fire for separation from his son, for that no news of the latter had reached