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When the merchant heard her verses, he wept and put out his hand to wipe away her tears; but she let down her veil, saying, “God forbid, O my master!” The Bedouin, who was sitting at a little distance, watching them, saw her cover her face and concluded that she would have hindered him from handling her: so he rose and running to her, dealt her such a blow on the shoulders with a camel’s halter he had in his hand, that she fell to the ground on her face. Her eyebrow smote against a stone, which cut it open, and the blood streamed down her face; whereupon she gave a loud scream and fainted away. The merchant was moved to tears for her and said in himself, “I must and will buy this damsel, though I pay down her weight in gold, and deliver her from this tyrant.” And he began to reproach the Bedouin, whilst Nuzhet ez Zeman lay insensible. When she came to herself, she wiped away her tears and bound up her head: then, raising her eyes to heaven, she sought her Lord with a sorrowful heart and repeated the following verses:
Have ruth on one who once was rich and great, Whom villainy hath brought to low estate.
She weeps with never-ceasing tears and says, “There’s no recourse against the laws of Fate.”
Then she turned to the merchant and said to him, in a low voice, “By Allah, do not leave me with this tyrant, who knows not God the Most High! If I pass this night with him, I shall kill myself with my own hand: save me from him, and God will save thee from hell-fire.” So the merchant said to the Bedouin, “O chief of the Arabs, this girl is none of thine affair; so do thou sell her to me for what thou wilt.” “Take her,” said the Bedouin, “and pay me down her price, or I will carry her back to the camp and set her to feed the camels and gather their droppings.”[1] Quoth the merchant, “I will give thee fifty thousand dinars
- ↑ For fuel.
