spill thy blood! How darest thou fellow me with devils, me that
am a Prince of the sons of the royal Chosroes who, had they
wished to take thy kingdom, could shake thee like an earthquake
from thy glory and thy dominions and spoil thee of all thy
possessions?" Now when the King heard his words, he was
confounded with awe and bodily fear of him and rejoined, "If thou
indeed be of the sons of the Kings, as thou pretendest, how
cometh it that thou enterest my palace without my permission, and
smirchest mine honour, making thy way to my daughter and feigning
that thou art her husband and claiming that I have given her to
thee to wife, I that have slain Kings and Kings' sons, who sought
her of me in marriage? And now who shall save thee from my might
and majesty when, if I cried out to my slaves and servants and
bade them put thee to the vilest of deaths they would slay thee
forthright? Who shall deliver thee out of my hand?" When the
Prince heard this speech of the King he answered, "Verily, I
wonder at thee and at the shortness and denseness of thy wit! Say
me, canst covet for thy daughter a mate comelier than myself, and
hast ever seen a stouter hearted man or one better fitted for a
Sultan or a more glorious in rank and dominion than I?" Rejoined
the King, "Nay, by Allah! but I would have had thee, O youth, act
after the custom of Kings and demand her from me to wife before
witnesses, that I might have married her to thee publicly; and
now, even were I to marry her to thee privily, yet hast thou
dishonoured me in her person." Rejoined the Prince, "Thou sayest
sooth, O King, but if thou summon thy slaves and thy soldiers and
they fall upon me and slay me, as thou pretendest, thou wouldst
but publish thine own disgrace, and the folk would be divided
between belief in thee and disbelief in thee. Wherefore, O King,
thou wilt do well, meseemeth, to turn from this thought to that