Dunyazad said to her, "Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be
other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short
the watching of this our latter night!" She replied, "With love
and good will!" It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the
director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting
and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the
Princess said to the Sultan, "In very sooth my tale is passing
strange," and he besought her to recount it. So she began to
disclose the whole of her history and the adventures which had
befallen her and her sisters and their mother; especially of the
shipwreck in middle-most ocean and of her coming to land; after
which she told the affair of the Wazir burnt by her sire, that
traitor who had separated children from father and, brief, all
that had betided them from first to last. Hearing her soft speech
and her strange story the Sultan marvelled and his heart inclined
herwards; then he gave her in charge to the Palace women and
conferred upon her favours and benefits. But when he looked upon
her beauty and loveliness, her brilliancy and perfect grace he
fell deeply in love with her, and his daughter hearing the
accidents which had happened to the Princess's father cried, "By
Allah, the story of this damsel should be chronicled in a book,
that it become the talk of posterity and be quoted as an instance
of the omnipotence of Allah Almighty; for He it is who parteth
and scattereth and re-uniteth." So saying she took her and
carried her to her own apartment where she entreated her
honourably; and the maiden, after she had spent a month in the
Palace, showed charms grown two-fold and even more. At last one
day of the days, as she sat beside the King's daughter in her
chamber about eventide, when the sun was hot after a sultry
summer day and her cheeks had flushed rosy red, behold, the