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fear lest the Afrit come, whilst I am telling it to thee.’ Quoth she, ‘He went out from me but an hour before thy coming and will not return till Tuesday: so sit and take thine ease and be thy heart at rest and tell me what hath betided thee, from first to last.’ And he answered, ‘I hear and obey.’ So he told her all that had befallen him from first to last, but, when she heard speak of Bediya el Jemal, her eyes ran over with streaming tears and she exclaimed, ‘O Bediya el Jemal, I had not thought this of thee! Out upon fortune! O Bediya el Jemal, dost thou not remember me nor say, “Where is my sister Dauleh Khatoun gone?”’ And she wept passing sore, lamenting Bediya el Jemal’s forgetfulness of her.
Then said Seif, ‘O Dauleh Khatoun, thou art a mortal and she is a genie: how then can she be thy sister?’ ‘She is my foster-sister,’ replied the princess, ‘and this is how it came about. My mother went out to take her pleasure in the garden, when the pangs of labour seized her and she gave birth to me. As fate would have it, the mother of Bediya el Jemal chanced to be passing with her guards, when she also was taken with the pains of travail; so she alighted in a part of the garden and was there delivered of Bediya el Jemal. She despatched one of her women to seek food and childbirth-gear of my mother, who sent her what she sought and invited her to visit her. So she came to her with her child and my mother suckled Bediya el Jemal; after which the latter and her mother abode with us in the garden two months.
Then Bediya’s mother gave my mother somewhat,[1] saying, “When thou hast need of me, I will come to thee in the midst of the garden,” and departed to her own
- ↑ This appears by the sequel (according to the Breslau Edition) to have been certain perfumes, by burning which she could summon the Queen of the Jinn.
