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 in Mameluke's habit said, "And I too have a strange
history." Then she fell to relating all that had betided her from
the very beginning to that which hath before been described; and
when her father heard it he felt assured that she was his
daughter. So he arose and threw himself upon her and embraced her
and after he veiled her face with a kerchief was with him, and
her husband exclaimed, "Would to Heaven that I also could
forgather with my wife." Quoth she, "Inshallah, and that soon,"
and she inclined to him after kindly fashion and said to herself,
"Indeed this be my true husband." Herewith all resolved to march
from that stead and they departed, the Princess's spouse still
unknowing that she was his wife; and they stinted not faring till
they entered the Sultan's city and all made for the Palace. Then
the Princess slipped privily into the Harem without the knowledge
of her mate and changed her semblance, when her father said to
her husband, "Hie thee to the women's apartment: haply Allah may
show to thee thy wife." So he went in and found her sitting in
her own apartment and he marvelled as he espied her and drew near
her and threw his arms round her neck of his fond love to her and
asked her concerning her absence. Thereupon she told him the
truth saying, "I went forth seeking my sire and habited in a
Mameluke's habit and 'twas I slew the lion and roasted his flesh
over the fire, but thou wouldest not eat thereof." At these words
the Sultan rejoiced and his rejoicings increased and all were in
the highmost of joy and jolliment; he and her father with the two
other sons-in-law, and this endured for a long while. But at last
all deemed it suitable to revisit their countries and capitals