out, "Ho Sabihah! Shajarat al-Durr! Nur al-Huda! Najmat al-Subh!
be ye awake? Shahwah, Nuzhab, Halwa, Zarifah, out on you,
speak![FN#105]'' But no one answered; so she looked all around
and said, "Woe's me! have they entombed me in the tombs? O Thou
who knowest what man's thought enwombs and who givest
compensation on the Day of Doom, who can have brought me from
amid hanging screens and curtains veiling the Harim rooms and set
me down between four tombs?" All this while Ghanim was standing
by: then he said to her, "O my lady, here are neither screened
rooms nor palace Harims nor yet tombs; only the slave henceforth
devoted to thy love, Ghanim bin Ayyub, sent to thee by the
Omniscient One above, that all thy troubles He may remove and win
for thee every wish that cloth behove!" Then he held his peace.
She was reassured by his words and cried, "I testify that there
is no god but the God and I testify that Mohammed is the Apostle
of God!"; then she turned to Ghanim and, placing her hands before
her face, said to him in the sweetest speech, "O blessed youth,
who brought me hither? See, I am now come to myself." "O my
lady," he replied, "three slave eunuchs came here bearing this
chest;" and related to her the whole of what had befallen him,
and how evening having closed upon him had proved the cause of
her preservation, otherwise she had died smothered.[FN#106] Then
he asked her who she was and what was her story, and she
answered, "O youth, thanks be to Allah who hath cast me into the
hands of the like of thee! But now rise and put me back into the
box; then fare forth upon the road and hire the first camel
driver or muleteer thou findest to carry it to thy house. When I
am there, all will be well and I will tell thee my tale and
acquaint thee with my adventures, and great shall be thy gain by
means of me." At this he rejoiced and went outside the tomb. The