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So she abode with her and cheered her with talk till the morning, when Meryem saw Noureddin enter the street, followed by the Frank and a company of merchants, whereupon she trembled in every nerve and her colour changed and she fell a-shaking, as the ship shakes in mid-ocean for the violence of the wind. When the druggist’s wife saw this, she said to her, ‘O my lady Meryem, what ails thee that I see thy case changed and thy face grown pale and disfeatured?’ ‘By Allah, O my mother,’ replied she, ‘my heart forebodeth me of parting and severance of union!’ And she bemoaned herself and sighed heavily, reciting the following verses:
Incline not to parting, I pray; For bitter its savour is aye.
E’en the sun at his setting turns pale, To think he must part from the day;
And so, at his rising, for joy Of reunion, he’s radiant and gay.
Then she wept passing sore, making sure of separation, and said to the druggist’s wife, ‘O my mother, said I not to thee that my lord Noureddin had been tricked into selling me? I doubt not but he hath sold me this night to yonder Frank, albeit I bade him beware of him; but precaution availeth not against destiny. So the truth of my words is made manifest to thee.’ Whilst they were talking, in came Noureddin, and she looked at him and saw that his colour was changed and that he trembled and there appeared on his face signs of grief and repentance: so she said to him, ‘O my lord Noureddin, meseemeth thou hast sold me.’ Whereupon he wept sore and groaned and lamented and recited the following verses:
’Twas Fate, and taking thought avails not anything; If thou err, it errs not in its foreordering.
When God upon a man endowed with hearing, sight And reasoning, His will in aught to pass would bring,
