aileth thee to take my servant?' Whereupon she cried out at him,
saying, 'Know that this is my husband, whom I had lost.' And
Selim also cried out, saying, 'Mercy! Mercy! I appeal to God and
to the Sultan against this Satan!' Therewith the folk gathered
together to them forthright and loud rose the clamours and the
cries between them; but the most part of them said, 'Refer their
affair to the Sultan.' So they referred the case to the Sultan,
who was none other than Selim's sister Selma.

[Then they went up to the palace and] the interpreter went in to
Selma and said to her, 'O king of the age, here is an Indian
woman, who cometh from the land of Hind, and she hath laid hands
on a young man, a servant, avouching that he is her husband, who
hath been missing these two years, and she came not hither but on
his account, and indeed these many days she hath done almsdeeds
[in the city]. And here is a man, a cook, who avoucheth that the
young man is his slave.' When the queen heard these words, her
entrails quivered and she groaned from an aching heart and called
to mind her brother and that which had betided him. Then she bade
those who were about her bring them before her, and when she saw
them, she knew her brother and was like to cry aloud; but her
reason restrained her; yet could she not contain herself, but she
must needs rise up and sit down. However, she enforced herself
unto patience and said to them, 'Let each of you acquaint me with
his case.'

So Selim came forward and kissing the earth before the [supposed]
king, praised him and related to him his story from beginning to
end, till the time of their coming to that city, he and his
sister, telling him how he had entered the place and fallen into