Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 5.djvu/311

 the way, constrain them to the straitest part thereof.' So I withheld my salutation, but she cried out from behind the curtain, saying, 'Where is the salutation of Unity and Indivisibility, O Khawwas?' I was astonished at her speech and asked, 'How knowest thou me?'; whereto she answered, 'When the heart and thoughts are whole, the tongue speaketh eloquently from the secret recesses of the soul. I begged Him yesterday to send me one of His saints, at whose hands I might have deliverance, and behold, it was cried to me from the dark places of my house, 'Grieve not; for we soon will send thee Ibrahim the Basket-maker.' Then I asked her, 'What of thee?' and she answered, 'It is now four years since there appeared to me the Manifest Truth, and He is the Relator and the Ally, and the Uniter and the Sitter-by; whereupon my folk looked askance upon me with an evil eye and taxed me with insanity and suspected me of depravity, and there came not in to me doctor but terrified me, nor visitor but confounded me.' Quoth I, 'And who led thee to the knowledge of what thou wottest?' Quoth she, 'The manifest signs and visible portents of Allah; and, when the path is patent to thee, thou espiest with thine own eyes both proof and prover.' Now whilst we were talking, behold, in came the old man appointed to guard her and said, 'What doth thy doctor?'; and she replied, 'He knoweth the hurt and hath hit upon the healing.'"--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Four Hundred and Seventy-eighth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that "when the Shaykh, her guardian, went in to her he said, 'What doth thy doctor?'; and she replied, 'He knoweth the hurt and hath hit upon the healing.' Hereupon he manifested joy and gladness and accosted me with a cheerful countenance, then went and told the King, who enjoined to treat me with all honour and regard. So I visited her daily for seven days, at the end of which time she said to me, 'O Abu Ishak, when shall be our flight to the land of Al-Islam?' 'How canst thou go forth,' replied I, 'and who would dare to aid thee?' Rejoined she, 'He who sent thee to me, driving thee as it were;' and I observed, 'Thou sayest sooth.' So when the morrow dawned, we fared forth by the city-gate and all eyes were veiled from us, by commandment of Him who when