with all manner things of price, goods and treasures and what not
else. Moreover, she appointed one of the viziers, a man in whom
she trusted and in his fashion and ordinance, to rule the realm
in their absence, saying to him, 'Abide [in the kingship] a
full-told year and ordain all that whereof thou hast need.

Then the old queen and her daughter and son-in-law embarked in
the ship and setting sail, fared on till they came to the land of
Mekran. Their arrival there befell at the last of the day; so
they passed the night in the ship, and when the day was near to
break, the young king went down from the ship, that he might go
to the bath, and made for the market. As he drew near the bath,
the cook met him by the way and knew him; so he laid hands on him
and binding his arms fast behind him, carried him to his house,
where he clapped the old shackles on his feet and straightway
cast him back into his whilom place of duresse.

When Selim found himself in that sorry plight and considered that
wherewith he was afflicted of tribulation and the contrariness of
his fortune, in that he had been a king and was now returned to
shackles and prison and hunger, he wept and groaned and lamented
and recited the following verses:

My fortitude fails, my endeavour is vain; My bosom is straitened.
To Thee, I complain,
O my God! Who is stronger than Thou in resource? The Subtle, Thou
knowest my plight and my pain.

To return to his wife and her mother. When the former arose in
the morning and her husband returned not to her with break of