of a truth I know that I am about to be lost past recourse, and the cause of my destruction is naught but love and longing and excess of desire and distraction, and disunion from my beloved after union with her; but I beseech Allah to deliver us from this perilous predicament.”  And they ceased not to look out of the balcony on the Caliph who was taking his pleasure, till the banquet was spread before him, when he turned to one of the damsels and said to her, “O Gharam,[FN#189] let us hear some of thine enchanting songs.”  So she took the lute and tuning it, began singing,

“The longing of a Bedouin maid, whose folks are far away, *
     Who yearns after the willow of the Hejaz and the
     bay,[FN#190]—­
Whose tears, when she on travellers lights, might for their water
     serve * And eke her her passion, with its heat, their
     bivouac-fire purvey,—­
Is not more fierce nor ardent than my longing for my love, *
     Who deems that I commit a crime in loving him
     alway."[FN#191]

Now when Shams al-Nahar heard these verses she slipped off the stool whereon she sat and fell to the earth fainting and became insensible to the world around her; upon which the damsels came and lifted her up.  And when Ali bin Bakkar saw this from the balcony he also slipped down senseless, and Abu al-Hasan said, “Verily Fate hath divided love-desire equally upon you twain!"[FN#192] As he spoke lo! in came the damsel who had led them up to the balcony and said to him, “O Abu al-Hasan, arise thou and thy friend and come down, for of a truth the world hath waxed strait upon us and I fear lest our case be discovered or the Caliph become aware of you; unless you descend at once we are dead ones.”  Quoth he, “And how shall this youth descend with me seeing that he hath no strength to rise?” Thereupon the damsel began sprinkling rose-water on Ali bin Bakkar till he came to his senses, when Abu al-Hasan lifted him up and the damsel made him lean upon her.  So they went down from the balcony and walked on awhile till the damsel opened a little iron door, and made the two friends pass through it, and they came upon a bench by the Tigris’ bank.  Thereupon the slave-girl clapped her hands[FN#193] and there came up a man with a little boat to whom said she, “Take up these two young men and land them on the opposite side.”  So both entered the boat and, as the man rowed off with them and they left the garden behind them, Ali bin Bakkar looked back towards the Caliph’s palace and the pavilion and the grounds; and bade them farewell with these two couplets,

     “I offered this weak hand as last farewell, *
          While to heart-burning fire that hand is guided: 
     O let not this end union!  Let not this *
          Be last provision for long road provided!”

Thereupon the damsel said to the boatman, “Make haste with them both.”  So he plied his oars deftly (the slave-girl being still with them);—­And Shahrazad perceived the dawning day and ceased saying her permitted say.