On his arrival at Damascus, he was conducted before Hishám, whom he found in a splendid saloon, seated under a pavilion of red silk surmounted by a dome of yellow brocade, attended by two female slaves of beauty unsurpassed, each holding a crystal ewer of wine. His admission during the presence of members of the king's ḥareem was a very unusual and high honour: the mention of the wine will be explained in the next chapter. After Ḥammád had given the salutation[136] and the Khaleefeh had returned it, the latter told him that he had sent for him to ask respecting a couplet of which he could only remember that it ended with the word "ibreeḳ," which signifies "a ewer." The reciter reflected awhile, and the lines occurred to his mind, and he repeated them. Hishám cried out in delight that the lines were those he meant; drank a cup of wine, and desired one of the female slaves to hand a cup to Ḥammád. She did so; and the draught, he says, deprived him of one-third of his reason. The Khaleefeh desired him to repeat the lines again, and drink a second cup; and Ḥammád was deprived of another third of his reason in the same manner; and said, "O Prince of the Faithful, two-thirds of my reason have departed from me." Hishám laughed, and desired him to ask what he would before the remaining third should have gone; and the reciter said, "One of these two female slaves." The Khaleefeh laughed again, and said, "Nay, but both of them are thine, and all that is upon them and all that they possess, and beside them fifty thousand pieces of gold."--"I kissed the ground before him," says Ḥammád, "and drank a third cup, and was unconscious of what happened after. I did not awake till the close of the night, when I found myself in a handsome house, surrounded by lighted candles, and the two female slaves were putting in order my clothes and other things. So I took possession of the property, and departed, the happiest of the creatures of God."[137]