The widow of Noureddin Ali, who had still continued sitting like a woman moped and weaned from the affairs of this world, no sooner understood by his discourse that her dear son, whom she lamented so bitterly, might still be alive, than she rose, and repeatedly embraced the beautiful lady and her grandchild Agib; and perceiving in the youth the features of Bedreddin, she shed tears very different from those to which she had been so long accustomed.  She could not forbear kissing the youth, who, on his part, received her embraces with all the demonstrations of joy he was capable of.  Madam, said Schemseddin, it is time to wipe away your tears, and cease your groans; you must now think of accompanying us to Egypt.  The sultan of Balsora has given me leave to carry you thither, and I doubt not that you will agree to it.  I am hopeful that we shall at last find out your son, my nephew; and if that should come to pass, the history of him, of you, of my own daughter, and of my own adventures, will deserve to be committed to writing, and to be transmitted to posterity.

The widow of Noureddin Ali heard this proposal with pleasure, and from that very minute ordered preparations to be made for her departure.  In the mean time Schemseddin desired a second audience; and, after taking leave of the sultan, who received him with ample marks of respect, giving him a considerable present for himself, and another of great value for the sultan of Egypt, he set out from Balsora for the city of Damascus.  When he arrived in its neighbourhood, he ordered his tents to be pitched without the gate at which he designed to enter the city, and gave out that he would tarry there three days in order to give his equipage rest, and buy up the best curiosities he could meet with, in order to present them to the sultan of Egypt.  While he was thus employed in choosing the finest of the stuffs which the principal merchants had brought to his tents, Agib begged the black eunuch, his governor, to carry him through the city, in order to see what he had not leisure to view as he passed before, and to know what was become of the pastry-cook whom he had wounded with a stone.  The eunuch, complying with his request, went with him towards the city, after leave obtained from his mother.  They entered Damascus by the paradise-gate, which lay next to the tents of the vizier Schemseddin.  They walked through the great squares and public places where the richest goods were sold, and viewed the ancient mosque of the Ommidae[Footnote:  That is, of caliphs who reigned after the four first successors of Mahomet, and were so called from one of their ancestors whose name was Ommiam.], at the hour of prayer, between noon and sunset[Footnote:  This prayer is always repeated two hours and a half before sunset.].  After that they passed the shop of Bedreddin, whom they found still employed in making cream-tarts:  I salute you, sir, said Agib.  Do you know me?  Do you remember ever seeing me before?  Bedreddin,