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When she heard this, she looked at me askance and said, ‘Could not thy breast hold the secret that was between us an hour, but thou must discover it to this man?’ But I swore to her [that I had not told him] and excused myself to her and fell to kissing her hands and tickling her breasts and biting her cheeks, till she laughed and turning to the blind man, said to him, ‘Sing, O my lord!’ So he took the lute and sang as follows:
How often have I visited the fair and side by side, With soft caressing hands have stroked the fingers henna-dyed!
How often have I handled eke the breasts’ pomegranates ripe And the plump apples of the cheeks with bites and kisses plied!
So I said to her, ‘O my lady, who can have told him what we were about.’ ‘True,’ answered she, and we removed to a distance from him. Presently quoth he, ‘I have a need to make water.’ And I said, ‘O boy, take the candle and go before him.’ Then he went out and tarried a long while. So we went in search of him, but could not find him; and behold, the doors were locked and the keys in the closet, and we knew not whether he had flown up to heaven or sunk into the earth. Wherefore I knew that he was Iblis and that he had done me a pander’s office and returned, recalling to myself the words of Abou Nuwas in the following verses:
I marvel at Iblis no less for his pride Than the lewdness and meanness that mark his intent.
To Adam himself he refused to prostrate, Yet his lineage to serve as a pimp is content.
THE LOVERS OF MEDINA.
[Quoth Ibrahim Abou Ishac], I was once in my house, when one knocked at the door; so my servant went out and returned, saying, ‘A comely youth is at the door, seeking admission.’ I bade admit him and there came in to me a young man, on whom were traces of sickness,
