The king marvelled, he and his company, and praised God the Most High for that he had come thither; after which he turned to the eunuch and said to him, ‘What is this youth thou hast with thee?’ ‘O king,’ answered he, ’this is the son of a nurse who belonged to us and we left him little.  I saw him to-day and his mother said to me, ‘Take him with thee.’  So I brought him with me, that he might be a servant to the king, for that he is an adroit and quickwitted youth.’  Then the king fared on, he and his company, and the eunuch and the youth with them, what while he questioned the former of Belehwan and his dealing with his subjects, and he answered, saying, ’As thy head liveth, O king, the folk with him are in sore straits and not one of them desireth to look on him, gentle or simple.’

[When the king returned to his palace,] he went in to his wife Shah Khatoun and said to her, ’I give thee the glad news of thine eunuch’s return.’  And he told her what had betided and of the youth whom he had brought with him.  When she heard this, her wits fled and she would have cried out, but her reason restrained her, and the king said to her, ’What is this?  Art thou overcome with grief for [the loss of] the treasure or [for that which hath befallen] the eunuch?’ ‘Nay, as thy head liveth, O king!’ answered she.  ‘But women are fainthearted.’  Then came the servant and going in to her, told her all that had befallen him and acquainted her with her son’s case also and with that which he had suffered of stresses and how his uncle had exposed him to slaughter and he had been taken prisoner and they had cast him into the pit and hurled him from the top of the citadel and how God had delivered him from these perils, all of them; and he went on to tell her [all that had betided him], whilst she wept.

Then said she to him, ’When the king saw him and questioned thee of him, what saidst thou to him?’ And he answered, ’I said to him, “This is the son of a nurse who belonged to us.  We left him little and he grew up; so I brought him, that he might be servant to the king,"’ Quoth she, ‘Thou didst well.’  And she charged him to be instant in the service of the prince.  As for the king, he redoubled in kindness to the eunuch and appointed the youth a liberal allowance and he abode going in to the king’s house and coming out therefrom and standing in his service, and every day he grew in favour with him; whilst, as for Shah Khatoun, she used to stand a-watch for him at the windows and balconies and gaze upon him, and she on coals of fire on his account, yet could she not speak.