aught like this”; and, marvelling much at the matter, determined that there must be some cause therefor.  So she made for the light and found the eunuch sleeping within the door; and inside she saw a couch spread, whereon was a human form with the wax-candle burning at his head and the lanthorn at his feet, and she wondered to see the light and stole towards it little by little.  Then she folded her wings and stood by the bed and, drawing back the coverlid, discovered Kamar al-Zaman’s face.  She was motionless for a full hour in admiration and wonderment; for the lustre of his visage outshone that of the candle; his face beamed like a pearl with light; his eyelids were languorous like those of the gazelle; the pupils of his eyes were intensely black and brilliant[FN#241]; his cheeks were rosy red; his eye-brows were arched like bows and his breath exhaled a scent of musk, even as saith of him the poet,

“I kissed him:  darker grew those pupils,[FN#242] which *
     Seduce my soul, and cheeks flushed rosier hue;
O heart, if slanderers dare to deem there be *
     His like in chasms, Say ‘Bring him hither, you!’ "

Now when Maymunah saw him, she pronounced the formula of praise,[FN#243] and said, “Blessed be Allah, the best of Creators!”; for she was of the true-believing Jinn; and she stood awhile gazing on his face, exclaiming and envying the youth his beauty and loveliness.  And she said in herself, “By Allah!  I will do no hurt to him nor let any harm him; nay, from all of evil will I ransom him, for this fair face deserveth not but that folk should gaze upon it and for it praise the Lord.  Yet how could his family find it in their hearts to leave him in such desert place where, if one of our Marids came upon him at this hour, he would assuredly slay him.”  Then the Ifritah Maymunah bent over him and kissed him between the eyes, and presently drew back the sheet over his face which she covered up; and after this she spread her wings and soaring into the air, flew upwards.  And after rising high from the circle of the saloon she ceased not winging her way through air and ascending skywards till she drew near the heaven of this world, the lowest of the heavens.  And behold, she heard the noisy flapping of wings cleaving the welkin and, directing herself by the sound, she found when she drew near it that the noise came from an Ifrit called Dahnash.  So she swooped down on him like a sparrow-hawk and, when he was aware of her and knew her to be Maymunah, the daughter of the King of the Jinn, he feared her and his side-muscles quivered; and he implored her forbearance, saying, I conjure thee by the Most Great and August Name and by the most noble talisman graven upon the seal-ring of Solomon, entreat me kindly and harm me not!” When she heard these words her heart inclined to him and she said, “Verily, thou conjurest me, O accursed, with a mighty conjuration.  Nevertheless, I will not let thee go, till thou tell me whence thou comest at this hour.”  He