Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 4.djvu/231

 back to him and let thyself down to him by a rope from the window, and he will take thee and go away with thee." So Zumurrud thanked the old woman, who went forth and returned to Ali Shar and told him what she had done, saying, "Go this night, at midnight, to such a quarter, for the accursed carle's house is there and its fashion is thus and thus. Stand under the window of the upper chamber and whistle; whereupon she will let herself down to thee; then do thou take her and carry her whither thou wilt." He thanked her for her good offices and with flowing tears repeated these couplets,

"Now with their says and saids no more vex me the chiding     race; * My heart is weary and I'm worn to bone by their     disgrace: And tears a truthful legend with a long ascription-chain     * Of my desertion and distress the lineage can trace. O thou heart-whole and free from dole and dolours I endure, * Cut     short thy long persistency nor question of my case: A sweet-lipped one and soft of sides and cast in shapeliest mould     * Hath stormed my heart with honied lure and honied words of     grace. No rest my heart hath known since thou art gone, nor ever close *     These eyes, nor patience aloe scape the hopes I dare to     trace: Ye have abandoned me to be the pawn of vain desire, * In squalid     state 'twixt enviers and they who blame to face: As for forgetting you or love 'tis thing I never knew; * Nor in     my thought shall ever pass a living thing but you."

And when he ended his verses, he sighed and shed tears and repeated also these couplets,

"Divinely were inspired his words who brought me news of you; *     For brought he unto me a gift was music in mine ear: Take he for gift, if him content, this worn-out threadbare robe,     * My heart, which was in pieces torn when parting from my     fete."

He waited till night darkened and, when came the appointed time, he went to the quarter she had described to him and saw and recognised the Christian's house; so he sat down on the bench under the gallery. Presently drowsiness overcame him and he slept (Glory be to Him who sleepeth not!?, for it was long since he had tasted sleep, by reason of the violence of his passion, and