On this wise they abode a whole year, at the end of which time Selim said to the queen-mother, ’Know that my life is not pleasing to me nor can I abide with you in contentment till I get me tidings of my sister and learn in what issue her affair hath resulted and how she hath fared after me.  Wherefore I will go and be absent from you a year’s space; then will I return to you, so it please God the Most High and I accomplish of this that which I hope.’  Quoth she, ’I will not trust to thy word, but will go with thee and help thee to that which thou desirest of this and further thee myself therein.’  So she took a ship and loaded it with all manner things of price, goods and treasures and what not else.  Moreover, she appointed one of the viziers, a man in whom she trusted and in his fashion and ordinance, to rule the realm in their absence, saying to him, ’Abide [in the kingship] a full-told year and ordain all that whereof thou hast need.

Then the old queen and her daughter and son-in-law embarked in the ship and setting sail, fared on till they came to the land of Mekran.  Their arrival there befell at the last of the day; so they passed the night in the ship, and when the day was near to break, the young king went down from the ship, that he might go to the bath, and made for the market.  As he drew near the bath, the cook met him by the way and knew him; so he laid hands on him and binding his arms fast behind him, carried him to his house, where he clapped the old shackles on his feet and straightway cast him back into his whilom place of duresse.

When Selim found himself in that sorry plight and considered that wherewith he was afflicted of tribulation and the contrariness of his fortune, in that he had been a king and was now returned to shackles and prison and hunger, he wept and groaned and lamented and recited the following verses: 

My fortitude fails, my endeavour is vain; My bosom is straitened. 
     To Thee, I complain,
O my God!  Who is stronger than Thou in resource?  The Subtle, Thou
     knowest my plight and my pain.

To return to his wife and her mother.  When the former arose in the morning and her husband returned not to her with break of day, she forebode all manner of calamity and straightway despatched her servants and all who were with her in quest of him; but they happened not on any trace of him neither fell in with aught of his news.  So she bethought herself concerning her affair and complained and wept and groaned and sighed and blamed perfidious fortune, bewailing that sorry chance and reciting these verses: 

God keep the days of love-delight!  How passing sweet they were! 
     How joyous and how solaceful was life in them whilere! 
Would he were not, who sundered us upon the parting-day!  How many
     a body hath he slain, how many a bone laid bare! 
Sans fault of mine, my blood and tears he shed and beggared me Of
     him I love, yet for himself gained nought thereby whate’er.