Then, before she laid the table, the Maugrabin fell to relating to her [his history] and said to her, “O wife of my brother, let it not amaze thee that in all thy days thou never sawest me neither knewest of me in my late brother’s lifetime, for that I left this country forty years agone and became an exile from my native land.  I journeyed to the lands of Hind and Sind and all the country of the Arabs and coming presently into Egypt, sojourned awhile in the magnificent city [of Cairo], which is the wonder of the world. [FN#172] Ultimately I betook myself to the land of Hither Barbary [FN#173] and sojourned there thirty years’ space, [FN#174] till one day of the days, as I sat, [FN#175] O wife of my brother, I bethought me of my country and my native place and of my late brother and longing waxed on me to see him and I fell a-weeping and lamenting over my strangerhood and distance from him.  In fine, my yearning for him importuned me till I resolved to journey to this country, the which was the falling-place of my head [FN#176] and my native land, that I might see my brother.  And I said in myself, “O man, how long wilt thou be an exile [FN#177] from thy country and thy native place, whenas thou hast an only brother and no more?  Arise and journey and look upon him ere thou die.  Who knoweth the calamities of fate and the vicissitudes of the days?  Sore pity ’twere that thou shouldst die and not see thy brother.  Moreover, Allah (praised be He) hath given thee abundant wealth and it may be thy brother is in poor case and straitened, and thou wilt help him, an [FN#178] thou see him.”  So I arose forthright and equipped myself for travel; then, reciting the Fatiheh [FN#179], I took horse, after the Friday prayer, and came, after many hardships and fatigues,—­which I suffered, till the Lord (to whom belong might and majesty) protected [me],—­to this city.  I entered it and as I went about its thoroughfares the day before yesterday, I saw my brother’s son Alaeddin playing with the boys; and by Allah the Great, O wife of my brother, when I saw him, my heart crave to him, for that blood yearneth unto blood, and my soul foreboded me he was my brother’s son.  At his sight I forgot all my toils and troubles and was like to fly for joy; then, when he told me that my late brother had departed to the mercy of God the Most High, I swooned away for stress of grief and chagrin; and most like he hath told thee of that which overcame me. [FN#180] But I comforted myself somewhat with Alaeddin, who standeth in stead of [FN#181] the departed, for that whoso leaveth [a successor] [FN#182] dieth not.”