and days until Destiny threw him into such-and-such a city; and from the excess of what he had suffered of toil and travail he tarried therein a time.  Now the Shaykh of the Caravans (who had found the babe in the tent and had taken him and had tended and adopted him, and from whom the youth when grown to man’s estate had disappeared on the hunting excursion and returned not to his parents) also set out a-seeking him and fell diligently to searching for tidings of him and roaming from place to place.  Presently he was cast by doom of Destiny into the same city; and, as he found none to company with, he was suddenly met on one of the highways by the youth’s true father and the twain made acquaintance and became intimate until they nighted and morning’d in the same stead; withal neither knew what was his companion.  But one night of the nights the two sat down in talk and the true sire asked the adoptive father, “O my brother, tell us the cause of thy going forth from thy country and of thy coming hither?” Answered his comrade, “By Allah, O my brother, my tale is a wondrous and mine adventure is a marvellous.”  Quoth he, “And how?” and quoth the other, “I was Shaykh of the Cafilahs on various trading journeys, and during one of them I passed by a way of the ways where I found a pavilion pitched at a forking of the roads.  So I made for it and dismounted my party in that place and I glanced at the tent but we found none therein, whereupon I went forwards and entered it and saw a babe new-born strown upon his back and sucking his fingers.[FN#576] So I raised him between my hands and came upon a purse of two hundred dinars set under his head; and I took the gold and carried it off together with the child.”  But when his comrade, the true father, heard this tale from him he said to himself, “This matter must have been after such fashion,” and he was certified that the foundling was his son, for that he had heard the history told by the mother of the babe with the same details essential and accidental.  So he firmly believed[FN#577] in these words and rejoiced thereat, when his comrade continued, “And after that, O my brother, I bore off that babe and having no offspring I gave him to my wife who rejoiced therein and brought him a wet-nurse to suckle him for the usual term.  When he had reached his sixth year I hired a Divine to read with him and teach him writing and the art of penmanship;[FN#578] and, as soon as he saw ten years, I bought him a horse of the purest blood, whereon he learnt cavalarice and the shooting of shafts and the firing of bullets until he attained his fifteenth year.  Presently one day of the days he asked to go a-hunting in the wilderness, but we his parents (for he still held me to be his father and my wife his mother) forbade him in fear of accidents; whereupon he waxed sore sorrowful and we allowed him leave to fare forth.”—­And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased saying her permitted say.  Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, “How sweet and tasteful is thy story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!” Quoth she, “And where is this compared with that I would relate to you on the coming night an the Sovran suffer me to survive?” Now when it was the next night and that was