quoth I to him, ’Come up with me to the Palace-roof that we may gaze upon the view,’ when we saw from its height a herd of gazelles, and I cried, ’Ah that I had one of these!’ Hereat said he, ’By Allah, and by the life of thine eyes and by the blackness of their pupils, I will in very deed fill thy Palace therewith,’ and with such words he went forth and saddled his steed and swam the river to the further side, where he rode down three roes within sight of me.  Then I looked city-ward up stream and saw a batel cleaving the waters, whereby I knew that my father had sent me somewhat therein; So I wrote to the Prince and shot the paper bound to a shaft and bade him hide away from your faces until ye should have departed.  So he concealed himself within a cave where he tethered his horse, then he sought tidings of me, and seeing my cousin Sahlub, he was seized by jealousy.  So he lingered till yesternight, when he again swam the stream and came to the Palace where I had posted Radih, the handmaid, bidding her take seat beside the door lest haply he should enter; and presently she opened to him and he sought a place commanding a sight of us, and he saw me sitting with you twain, and both of you were carousing over your wine.  Now this was sore to him; so he wrote to me yonder note, and taking his Mameluke with him, fared forth to his own folk; and my desire is that you hie to him."[FN#240]—­And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day, and fell silent and ceased to say her permitted say.  Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, “How sweet 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 King suffer me to survive?” Now when it was the next night and that was

The Six Hundred and Eighty-seventh Night,

Dunyazad said to her “Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!” She replied, “With love and good will!” It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that quoth Al-Hayfa to Ibn Ibrahim, “I devise that thou hie to Yusuf with this letter;” whereto quoth he, “Hearkening is obedience:  I will, however, take this thy writ and wend with it first to my own folk, after which I will mount my horse and fare to find him.”  So she largessed him with an hundred gold pieces and entrusted to him the paper which contained the following purport in these couplets,

“What state of heart be this no ruth can hoard? * And harm a
     wretch to whom none aid accord,
But sobs and singulfs, clouds that rain with tears * And seas aye
     flowing and with gore outpour’d;
And flames that rage in vitals sickness-burnt * The while in
     heart-core I enfold them stor’d. 
Yet will I hearten heart with thee, O aim! * O Ravisher, O
     Moslems’ bane ador’d: 
Ne’er did I look for parting but ’twas doomed * By God Almighty
     of all the lords the Lord.”