And when she had finished, Nur-ed-Din thus replied to her:
She bade me farewell on the day of separation, saying, while she wept from the pain that it occasioned,
What wilt thou do after my departure?Say this, I replied, unto him who will survive it.
The Khalifeh, when he heard this, was distressed at the thought of separating them, and, looking towards the young man, he said to him, O my master, art thou in fear on account of any crime, or art thou in debt to any one? Nur-ed-Din answered, By Allah, O fisherman, a wonderful event, and an extraordinary adventure, happened to me and this damsel: if it were engraved on the understanding, it would be a lesson to him who would be admonished.Wilt thou not, rejoined the Khalifeh, relate to us thy story, and acquaint us with thy case? Perhaps thy doing so may be productive of relief; for the relief of God is nearSo Nur-ed-Din said, Wilt thou hear our story in poetry or in prose?Prose, answered the Khalifeh, is mere talk; and verse, words put together like pearls. And Nur-ed-Din hung down his head towards the ground, and then related his story in a series of verses; but when he had finished, the Khalifeh begged him to explain his case more fully. He therefore acquainted him with the whole of his circumstances from beginning to end; and when the Khalifeh understood the affair, he said to him, Whither wouldst thou now repair? He answered, God's earth is wide. The Khalifeh then said to him, I will write for thee a letter which thou shalt convey to the Sultan Mohammad the son of Suleyman Ez-Zeyni, and when he shall have read it, he will do thee no injury-Is there in the world, said Nur-ed-Din, a fisherman who correspondeth with Kings? Verily this is a thing that can never beThou hast spoken truly, rejoined the Khalifeh; but I will ac- quaint thee with the cause. Know that I read in the same school with him, under a master, and I was his monitor; and after that, prosperity was his lot, and he became a Sultan, while God made me to be a fisherman: yet I have never sent to request anything of him, but he hath performed my wish; and if I sent to him every day to request a thousand things of him, he would do what I asked. When Nur-ed-Din, therefore, heard his words, he said to him, Write, that
