behind him and began improvising,

"The sword, the sworder and the blood-skin waiting me I sight, *
And cry, Alack, mine evil fate! ah, my calamity!
How is't I see no loving friend with eye of sense or soul? *
What! no one here? I cry to all: will none reply to me?
The time is past that formed my life, my death term draweth nigh,
* Will no man win the grace of God showing me clemency;
And look with pity on my state, and clear my dark despair, * E'en
with a draught of water dealt to cool death's agony?"

The people fell to weeping over him; and the headsman rose and
brought him a draught of water; but the Wazir sprang up from his
place and smote the gugglet with his hand and broke it: then he
cried out at the executioner and bade him strike off Nur al-Din's
head. So he bound the eyes of the doomed man and folk clamoured
at the Wazir and loud wailings were heard and much questioning of
man and man. At this moment behold, rose a dense dust-cloud
filling sky and wold; and when the Sultan, who was sitting in the
palace, descried this, he said to his suite, "Go and see what yon
cloud bringeth:" Replied Al Mu'in, "Not till we have smitten
this fellow's neck;" but the Sultan said, "Wait ye till we see
what this meaneth." Now the dust-cloud was the dust of J'afar
the Barmecide, Wazir to the Caliph, and his host; and the cause
of his coming was as follows. The Caliph passed thirty days
without calling to mind the matter of Nur al-Din Ali,[FN#75] and
none reminded him of it, till one night, as he passed by the
chamber of Anis al-Jalis, he heard her weeping and singing with a
soft sweet voice these lines of the poet,