Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 16.djvu/344

 when they drew near to the window, and Jullanar beheld them, she rose to them and met them with joy and happiness. On their seeing her, they knew her, and they went in to her and embraced her, weeping violently; and they said to her, O Jullanar, how is it that thou leavest us for four years, and we know not the place in which thou art? By Allah, the world was contracted unto us, by reason of the distress occasioned by thy separation, and we had no delight in food nor in drink a single day, weeping night and day on account of the excess of our longing to see thee.Then the damsel began to kiss the hand of the young man her brother, and the hand of her mother, and so also the hands of the daughters of her uncle, and they sat with her a while, asking her respecting her state, and the things that had happened to her, and her present condition.

So she said to them, Know ye, that when I quitted you, and came forth from the sea, I sat upon the shore of an island, and a man took me, and sold me to a merchant, and the merchant brought me to this city, and sold me to its King for ten thousand pieces of gold. Then he treated me with attention, and forsook all his concubines and his women and his favourites for my sake, and was diverted by his regard for me from every thing that he possessed and what was in his cityAnd when her brother heard her words, he said, Praise be to God who hath reunited us with thee! But it is my desire, O my sister, that thou wouldst arise and go with us to our country and our familySo when the King heard the words of her brother, his reason fled in consequence of his fear lest the damsel should accept the proposal of her brother, and he could not prevent her, though he was inflamed with love of her; wherefore he became perplexed, in violent fear of her separation. But as to the damsel Jullanar, on hearing the words of her brother, she said, By Allah, O my brother, the man who purchased me is the King of this city, and he is a great King, and a man of wisdom, generous, of the utmost liberality. He hath treated me with honour, and he is a person of kindness, and of great wealth, but hath no male child nor a female. He hath shewn favour to me, and acted well to me in every respect; and from the day when I came to him to the present time, I have not heard from him a bad word to grieve my heart; but he hath not ceased to treat me with courtesy, and hath done nothing without consulting me,