Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 3.djvu/248

222 joining them in one; after which he sat down.And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Prince Kamar al-Zaman had prayed (conjoining them in one) the prayers of sundown and nightfall, he sat down on the well and began reciting the Koran, and he repeated "The Cow," the "House of Imrán," and "Y. S.;" "The Compassionate," "Blessed be the King," "Unity" and "The two Talismans" ; and he ended with blessing and supplication and with saying, "I seek refuge with Allah from Satan the stoned." Then he lay down upon his couch which was covered with a mattress of satin from al-Ma'adin town, the same on both sides and stuffed with the raw silk of Irak; and under his head was a pillow filled with ostrich-down And when ready for sleep, he doffed his outer clothes and drew off his bag-trousers and lay down in a shirt of delicate stuff smooth as wax; and he donned a head-kerchief of azure Marázi cloth; and at such time and on this guise Kamar al-Zaman was like the full-orbed moon, when it riseth on its fourteenth night. Then,