Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 2.djvu/88

 66 Alf LaylafTwa Laylah. (taking advantage of the delay) said, " Restore her to her place." Then he sent at once for Fakirs and Koran-readers, and caused perlections to be made over her tomb and sat by the side of the grave, weeping till he fainted ; and he continued to frequent the tomb and sit there for a whole month, And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say. Nofo fojjm it foas tfje Jforty=secontJ Nfgfjt, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Caliph ceased not to frequent the tomb for the period of a whole month, at the end of which time it so happened one day that he entered the Serraglio, after dismissing the Emirs and Wazirs, and lay down and slept awhile; and there sat at his head a slave-girl fanning him, and at his feet a second rubbing and shampooing them. Presently he awoke and, opening his eyes, shut them again and heard the handmaid at his head saying to her who was at his feet, " A nice business this, O Khayzaran ! " and the other answered her " Well, O Kazfb al-Ban ? " " Verily " said the first, " our lord knoweth naught of what hath happened and sitteth waking and watching by a tomb wherein is only a log of wood carved by the carpenter's art." "And Kut al-Kulub," quoth the other, " what hath befallen her ? " She replied, " Know that the Lady Zubaydah sent a pellet of Bhang by one of the slave-women who was bribed to drug her ; and when sleep overpowered her she let put her in a chest, and ordered Sawab and Kafur and Bukhayt to throw her amongst the tombs." "What dost thou say, O Kazib al Ban;" asked Khayzaran, "is not the lady Kut al-Kulub dead?" "Nay, by Allah!" she answered "and long may her youth be saved from death ! but I have heard the Lady Zubaydah say that she is in the house of a young merchant named Ghanim bin Ayyub of Damascus, hight the Distraught, the Thrall o' Love ; and she hath been with him these four months, whilst our lord is weeping and watching by night at a tomb wherein is no corpse." They kept on talking this sort of talk, and the Caliph gave ear to their words ; and, by the time they had ceased speaking, he knew right well that the tomb was a feint and a fraud, and that Kut al-Kulub had The first name means " Rattan "j the second " Willow- wand," from the "Ban" or "Khilaf" the Egyptian willow (Salix rfLgyptiaca Linn.) vulgarly called " SafsaX." Forsk&l holds the " Ban " to be a different variety.