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khan and going in to her daughter, fetched a table of sand, which she levelled and drew a geomantic figure, by which she discovered that the stranger’s name was Ali of Cairo and that his fortune overrode her own and that of her daughter. ‘O my mother,’ said Zeyneb, ‘what has befallen thee, that thou hast recourse to the table of sand?’ ‘O my daughter,’ answered Delileh, ‘I have seen this day a young man who resembles Ahmed ed Denef, and I fear lest he come to hear how thou didst strip Ahmed and his men and enter the khan and play us a trick, in revenge for what we did with his chief and the forty; for methinks he hath taken up his lodging with Ed Denef.’ ‘What is this?’ rejoined Zeyneb. ‘Methinks thou hast taken his measure.’
Then she donned her finest clothes and went out into the town. When the people saw her, they all made love to her and she promised and retracted and listened and coquetted and passed from market to market, till she saw Ali coming, when she went up to him and rubbed her shoulder against him. Then she turned and said, ‘God preserve folk of discrimination!’ Quoth he, ‘How goodly is thy fashion! To whom dost thou belong?’ ‘To the gallant like thee,’ answered she; and he said, ‘Art thou married or single?’ ‘Married,’ replied she. ‘Shall it be in my lodging or thine?’ asked Ali, and she said, ‘I am a merchant’s daughter and a merchant’s wife and in all my life I have never been out of doors till to-day, when I made ready food and thought to eat, but found I had no mind thereto [without company]. When I saw thee, love of thee entered my heart: so wilt thou solace my soul and eat a mouthful with me?’ Quoth he, ‘Whoso is invited, let him accept.’ So she went on and he followed her from street to street: but presently he bethought himself and said, ‘What wilt thou do and thou a stranger? Verily it is said, “Whoso doth whoredom in his strangerhood, God
