crying for the departed, he asked them, “Where is he, my son?” and they answered, “Indeed he is dead.”  Right hard upon Salamah was this lie, and his grief grew the greater, so he scattered dust upon his head and plucked out his beard and rent his raiment and shrieked aloud saying, “Woe for my son, ah!  Woe for Habib, ah!  Woe for the slice of my liver, ah!  Woe for my grief, ah!  Woe for the core[FN#414] of my heart, ah!” Thereupon his mother came forth, and seeing her husband in this case, with dust on his head and his beard plucked out and his robe-collar[FN#415] rent, and sighting her son’s steed she shrieked, “Woe is me and well-away for my child, ah!” and fainted swooning for a full-told hour.  Anon when recovered she said to the knights who had formed the escort, “Woe to you, O men of evil, where have ye buried my boy?” They replied, “In a far-off land whose name we wot not, and ’tis wholly waste and tenanted by wild beasts,” whereat she was afflicted exceedingly.  Then the Emir Salamah and his wife and household and all the tribesmen donned garbs black-hued and ashes whereupon to sit they strewed, and ungrateful to them was the taste of food and drink, meat and wine; nor ceased they to beweep their loss, nor could they comprehend what had befallen their son and what of ill-lot had descended upon him from Heaven.  Such then was the case of them; but as regards the Sultan Habib, he continued sleeping until the Bhang ceased to work in his brain, when Allah sent a fresh, cool wind which entered his nostrils and caused him sneeze, whereby he cast out the drug and sensed the sun-heat and came to himself.  Hereupon he opened his eyes and sighted a wild and waste land, and he looked in vain for his companions the knights, and his steed and his sword and his spear and his coat of mail, and he found himself mother-naked, athirst, anhungered.  Then he cried out in that Desert of desolation which lay far and wide before his eyes, and the case waxed heavy upon him, and he wept and groaned and complained of his case to Allah Almighty, saying, “O my God and my Lord and my Master, trace my lot an thou hast traced it upon the Guarded Tablet, for who shall right me save Thyself, O Lord of Might that is All-might and of Grandeur All-puissant and All-excellent!” Then he began improvising these verses,

“Faileth me, O my God, the patience with the pride o’ me; * Life-
     tie is broke and drawing nigh I see Death-tide o’ me: 
To whom shall injured man complain of injury and wrong * Save to
     the Lord (of Lords the Best!) who stands by side o’me.”

Now whilst the Sultan Habib was ranging with his eye-corners to the right and to the left, behold, he beheld a blackness rising high in air, and quoth he to himself, “Doubtless this dark object must be a mighty city or a vast encampment, and I will hie me thither before I be overheated by the sun-glow and I lose the power of walking and I die of distress and none shall know my fate.”  Then he heartened his heart for the improvising of such poetry as came to his mind, and he repeated these verses,