100
at him and seeing that he spoke the truth, became as one bereft of reason and wept and buffeted her face, exclaiming, “There is no power and no virtue but in God! Verily we have fallen into grievous sin! What shall I do and what answer shall I make my father and my mother, when they say to me, ‘Whence hadst thou thy daughter’?” Quoth Sherkan, “I purpose to marry thee to my chief chamberlain and let thee bring up my daughter in his house, that none may know thee to be my sister. This that hath befallen us was ordained of God for a purpose of His own, and there is no way to cover ourselves but by thy marriage with the chamberlain, ere any know.” Then he fell to comforting her and kissing her head, and she said to him, “What wilt thou call the child?” “Call her Kuzia Fekan,”[1] replied he. Then he gave her in marriage to the chief chamberlain, and they reared the child in his house, on the laps of the slave-girls, till, one day, there came to King Sherkan a courier from his father, with a letter to the following purport, “In the name of God, etc. Know, O puissant King, that I am sore afflicted for the loss of my children: sleep fails me and wakefulness is ever present with me. I send thee this letter that thou mayst make ready the tribute of Syria and send it to us, together with the damsel whom thou hast bought and taken to wife; for I long to see her and hear her discourse; because there has come to us from the land of the Greeks a devout old woman, with five damsels, high-bosomed maids, endowed with knowledge and accomplishments and all fashions of learning that befit mortals; and indeed the tongue fails to describe this old woman and her companions. As soon as I saw the damsels, I loved them and wished to have them in my palace and at my commandment, for none of the kings possesses the like of them; so I asked the old woman their price, and she replied, ‘I will not sell them
- ↑ i.e. It was decreed, so it was.
