of cavaliers and he came to overrule three-score-and-six tribes of the Arabs.  One chance night of the nights as he lay sleeping in the sweetness of slumber, a Voice addressed him saying, “Rise forthright and know thy wife, whereby she shall conceive under command of Allah Almighty.”  Being thus disturbed of his rest the Emir sprang up and compressed his spouse Kamar al-Ashraf;[FN#381] she became pregnant by that embrace and when her days came to an end she bare a boy as the full moon of the fulness-night who by his father’s hest was named Habib.[FN#382] And as time went on his sire rejoiced in him with joy exceeding and reared him with fairest rearing and bade them teach him Koran-reading together with the glorious names of Almighty Allah and instruct him in writing and in all the arts and sciences.  After this he bestowed robes of honour and gifts of money and raiment upon the teachers who had made the Sultan[FN#383] Habib, when he reached the age of seventeen, the most intelligent and penetrating and knowing amongst the sons of his time.  And indeed men used to admire at the largeness of his understanding and were wont to say in themselves, “There is no help but that this youth shall rise to dignity (and what dignity!) whereof men of highmost intellect shall make loud mention.”  For he could write the seven caligraphs[FN#384] and he could recite traditions and he could improvise poetry; and, on one occasion when his father bade him versify impromptu, that he might see what might come thereof, he intoned,

“O my sire, I am lord of all lere man knows or knew—­ * Have
     enformed my vitals with lore and with legend true;
Nor cease I repeat what knowledge this memory guards * And my writ
     as ruby and pearl doth appear to view.”

So the Emir Salamah his sire marvelled at the elegance of his son’s diction; and the Notables of the clan, after hearing his poetry and his prose, stood astounded at their excellence; and presently the father clasped his child to his breast and forthright summoned his governor, to whom there and then he did honour of the highmost.  Moreover he largessed him with four camels carrying loads of gold and silver and he set him over one of his subject tribes of the Arabs; then said he to him, “Indeed thou hast done well, O Shaykh; so take this good and fare therewith to such a tribe and rule it with justice and equity until the day of thy death.”  Replied the governor, “O King of the Age, I may on no wise accept thy boons, for that I am not of mankind but of Jinn-kind; nor have I need of money or requirement of rule.  Know thou, O my lord, that erst I sat as Kazi amongst the Jinns and I was enthroned amid the Kings of the Jann, whenas one night of the nights a Voice[FN#385] addressed me in my sleep saying, ’Rise and hie thee to the Sultan Habib son of the Emir Salamah ruler of the tribes of the Arabs subject to the Banu Hilal and become his tutor and teach him all things teachable; and, if thou gainsay going, I will tear thy soul from