brother.  When a year had elapsed, there came to the city a ship, wherein were many merchants and much merchandise.  Now it was their custom from time immemorial that the king, whenever a ship made the port, sent to it such of his pages as he trusted in, who took agency of the goods, to the end that they might be first shown to the Sovran, who bought as much of them as befitted him and gave the merchants leave to sell whatso he wanted not.  So he commissioned, according to his custom, a man who should fare to the ship and seal up the bales and set over them one who could watch and ward them.  Meanwhile the Queen his wife, when the Magian fled with her and proffered himself to her and lavished upon her abounding wealth, rejected him and was like to kill herself[FN#518] for chagrin at that which had befallen and for concern anent her separation from her husband.  She also refused meat and drink and resolved to cast herself into the sea; but the Magian chained her and straitened her and clothed her in a coat of wool and said to her, “I will continue thee in wretchedness and humiliation till thou obey me and accept me.”  So she took patience and looked for the Almighty to deliver her from the hand of that accursed; and she ceased not travelling with him from country to country till he came with her in fine to the city wherein her husband was king and his goods were put under seal.  Now the woman was in a chest and two youths of the late king’s pages, who were now in the new King’s service, were those who had been charged with the watch and ward of the craft and her cargaison.  When the evening evened on them, the twain began talking and recounted that which had befallen them in their days of childhood and the manner of the faring forth of their father and mother from their country and kingdom when the wicked overcame their realm, and how they had gone astray in the forest and how Fate had severed them from their parents; for short, they told their tale from first to last.  When the woman heard their talk, she knew that they were her sons and cried out to them from the chest, “I am your mother, Such-an-one, and the token between you twain and me is thus and thus.”  The young men knew the token and falling upon the chest, brake the lock and brought out their mother, who seeing them, strained them to her bosom, and they fell upon her and fainted away, all three.  When they came to themselves, they wept awhile and the people assembled about them, marvelling at that they saw, and questioned them of their case.  So the young Princes vied each with other who should be the first to discover the story to the folk; and when the Magian saw this, he came up, crying out, “Alack!” and “Ruin!” and said to them, “Why and wherefore have ye broken open my chest?  Verily, I had in it jewels and ye have stolen them, and this damsel is my slave-girl and she hath agreed with you both upon a device to take my wealth.”  Then he rent his raiment and cried for aid, saying, “I appeal to Allah