“Ibn Sahl, ho scion of tree abhorr’d! * Rise, meet me in mellay
     and prove thee lord: 
My daughter hast snatched, O thou foul of deed, * And approachest
     me fearing the Lion of the horde. 
Hadst come in honour and fairly sued * I had made her thine own
     with the best accord;
But this rape hath o’erwhelmed in dishonour foul * Her sire, and
     all bounds thou hast overscor’d.”

Now when King Al-Mihrjan finished his verse, Yusuf rushed out to him, and cried at him with a terrible cry and a terrifying, and garred his own steed bound upon the battle-plain, where he played with brand and lance until he cast into oblivion every knight, reciting in the meantime the following verses,

“I am son to Al-Sahl, O of forbears vile! * Come forth and fight
     me sans guile or wile;
Thou hast hurt my heart; O of deed misdone, * So thou com’st to
     contend with this rank and file."[FN#271]

King Al-Mihrjan re-echoed his war-cry, but hardly had he ended when Yusuf drawing near him answered it with a shout which enquaked his heart and ravished his reason with sore terror, and repeated in reply these couplets,

“I am not to be titled of forbears vile * O whose ape-like face
     doth the tribe defile! 
Nay, I’m rending lion amid mankind, * A hero in wilds where the
     murks beguile. 
Al-Hayfa befitteth me, only me; * Ho thou whom men for an
     ape[FN#272] revile,”

When Yusuf had ended these words, Al-Mihrjan rushed forth and charged down upon him, and the two drawing nigh each of the foemen set on the other with a mighty onset and a prodigious.  They fought in duello and lanced out with lance and smote with sword, and dashed together as they were two ships of two mountains clashing; and they approached and retired, and the dust- cloud arose over them and they disappeared from men’s sight.  But hardly had an hour passed by when Yusuf made a final attack upon his enemy and narrowed his course and barred his way and pressed him hard; and, hanging upon his flank, smote him with the scymitar upon the nape of the neck[FN#273] and caused his head to fall between his feet, when he slipt from his steed upon the ground, and he lay stone dead and in his gore drowned.  Now as soon as the folk looked upon Yusuf and what he had dealt to their King and how he had made his head fly his body and had done him dead, they turned to take flight.  Thereupon Yusuf recognised Sahlub the cousin of Al-Hayfa, he who had been the cause of their separation and had roused her wrath against him; so he drew near to him and smote him with the bright shining blade on the right flank, and it came forth gleaming between his left ribs; so he fell to the ground drenched with blood, and he was left prostrate in the dust.  And when Yusuf had slain King Al- Mihrjan and Sahlub, his nephew, the Grandees of the realm came around him and greeted him with the salam.—­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 tale, 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