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her the assaults of fate and the vicissitudes of fortune, and lodged her therein, with her attendants; nor do we open it save once in every year, when our victual comes to us.’ And Uns el Wujoud said in himself, ‘I have gained my end, though after long travail.’
Meanwhile, Rose-in-bud took no delight in eating nor drinking, sitting nor sleeping; but her transport and passion and love-longing redoubled on her, and she went wandering about the castle, but could find no issue; wherefore she shed plenteous tears and recited the following verses:
They have prisoned me straitly from him I adore And given me to eat of mine anguish galore.
My heart with the flames of love-longing they fired, When me from the sight of my loved one they bore.
They have cloistered me close in a palace built high On a mount in the midst of a sea without shore.
If they’d have me forget, their endeavour is vain, For my love but redoubles upon me the more.
How can I forget him, when all I endure Arose from the sight of his face heretofore?
My days are consumed in lament, and my nights Pass in thinking of him, as I knew him of yore.
His memory my solace in solitude is, Since the lack of his presence I needs must deplore.
I wonder, will Fate grant my heart its desire And my love, after all, to my wishes restore!
Then she donned her richest clothes and trinkets and threw a necklace of jewels around her neck; after which she ascended to the roof of the castle and tying some strips of Baalbek stuff together, [to serve for a rope], made them fast to the battlements and let herself down thereby to the ground. Then she fared on over wastes and wilds, till she came to the sea-shore, where she saw a fishing-boat, and therein a fisherman, whom the wind had driven on to the island, as he went, fishing here and there, on the sea. When he saw her, he was affrighted,
