Then Kamar al-Zaman took the seal-ring from the little finger of Queen Budur and set it on his own; then, turning his back to her, went to sleep.[FN#264] When Maymunah the Jinniyah saw this, she was glad and said to Dahnash and Kashkash, “Saw ye how my beloved Kamar al-Zaman bore himself chastely towards this young lady?  Verily, this was of the perfection of his good gifts; for observe you twain how he looked on her and noted her beauty and loveliness, and yet embraced her not neither kissed her nor put his hand to her, but turned his back and slept.”  Answered they, “Even so!” Thereupon Maymunah changed herself into a flea and entering into the raiment of Budur, the loved of Dahnash, crept up her calf and came upon her thigh and, reaching a place some four carats[FN#265] below her navel, there bit her.  Thereupon she opened her eyes and sitting up in bed, saw a youth lying beside her and breathing heavily in his sleep, the loveliest of Almighty Allah’s creatures, with eyes that put to shame the fairest Houris of Heaven; and a mouth like Solomon’s seal, whose water was sweeter to the taste and more efficacious than a theriack, and lips the colour of coral-stone, and cheeks like the blood red anemone, even as saith one, describing him in these couplets,

“My mind’s withdrawn from Zaynab and Nawar[FN#266] *
     By rosy cheeks that growth of myrtle bear;
I love a fawn, a tunic-vested boy, *
     And leave the love of bracelet-wearing Fair: 
My mate in hall and closet is unlike *
     Her that I play with, as at home we pair. 
Oh thou, who blam’st my flight from Hind and Zaynab, *
     The cause is clear as dawn uplighting air! 
Would’st have me fare[FN#267] a slave, the thrall of thrall, *
     Cribbed, pent, confined behind the bar and wall?”

Now when Princess Budur saw him, she was seized by a transport of passion and yearning and love-longing,—­And Shahrazad per ceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

      When it was the One Hundred and Eighty-fifth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Princess Budur saw Kamar al-Zaman she was forthwith seized with a transport of passion and yearning and love longing, and she said to herself, “Alas, my shame!  This is a strange youth and I know him not.  How cometh he to be lying by my side on one bed?” Then she looked at him a second time and, noting his beauty and loveliness, said, “By Allah, he is indeed a comely youth and my heart[FN#268] is well-nigh torn in sunder with longing for him!  But alas, how am I shamed by him!  By the Almighty, had I known it was this youth who sought me in marriage of my father, I had not rejected him, but had wived with him and enjoyed his loveliness!” Then she gazed in his face and said, “O my lord and light of mine eyes, awake from sleep and take thy pleasure in my beauty and grace.”  And she moved him with her hand; but Maymunah the Jinniyah