“Yet, even as he gazed and so thought, so strange are the ways of Allah, there passed a camel, its houdah heavy with rich silks, and ornaments of the rarest within, but without disguised as humble, so that none might guess. And within was the beautiful Princess Yanee, hidden darkly behind folds of fluttering silk, her face and forehead covered to her starry eyes, as is prescribed, and even these veiled. Yet so strange are the ways of life and of Allah that, being young and full of the wonder which is youth and the curiosity and awe which that which is unknown or strange begets in us all, she was at this very moment engaged in peeping out from behind her veils, the while the bright panorama of the world was passing. And as she looked, behold, there was Abou, gazing wonderingly upon her fine accoutrements. So lithe was his form and so deep his eyes and so fair his face that, transfixed as by a beam, her heart melted and without thought she threw back her veil and parted the curtains of the houdah the better to see, and the better that he might see. And Abou, seeing the curtains put to one side and the vision of eyes that were as pools and the cheeks as the leaf of the rose shine upon him, was transfixed and could no longer move or think. “So gazing, he stood until her camel and those of many others had passed and turned beyond a curve of the street. Then bethinking himself that he might never more see her, he awoke and ran after, throwing one citizen and another to the right and the left. When at last he came up to the camel of his fair one, guarded by eunuchs and slaves, he drew one aside and said softly: ‘Friend, be not wrathful and I will give thee a hundred dinars in gold do thou, within such time as thou canst, report to me at the bazaar of Yussuf, the rug-merchant, who it is that rides within this houdah. Ask thou only for Abou. No more will I ask.’ The slave, noting his fine robes and the green-and-silver turban, thought him to be no less than a noble, and replied: ‘Young master, be not overcurious. Remember the vengeance of the caliph.... ‘Yet dinars have I to give.’... ‘I will yet come to thee.’ “Abou was enraptured by even so little as this, and yet dejected also by the swift approach and departure of joy. ‘For what am I now?’ he asked himself. ‘But a moment since, I was whole and one who could find delight in all things that were given me to do; but now I am as one who is lost and knows not his way.’” “Ay-ee,” sighed Azad Bakht, the barber, “I have had that same feeling more than once. It is something that one may not overcome.” “Al Tzoud, in the desert—” began Parfi, but he was interrupted by cries of “Peace—Peace!”