her footstep from an inner room, asked, "What is there to do?" "Thou mettest anon," replied his daughter, "Attaf thy son-in-law in the Bazar and didst tell him that my mother was sore afflicted with a colick." Hearing this he exclaimed, "This day I went not once to the market-street nor have I seen a soul!" Now they had not ceased conversing ere the door was rapped; and as the slave girls opened it, they saw porters laden with the young lady's gear and garments and they led the men into the court where the father asked them, "Who sent these stuffs?" "Attaf," they replied, and setting down their loads within went their way. Then the father turned to his daughter and said to her, "What deed hast done that my son-in-law bade take up thy gear and have it sent after thee?" And the mother said to him, "Hold thy peace and speak not such speech lest the honour of the house be blamed and shamed." And as they were talking, behold, up came Attaf companied by a party of friends when his father-in-law asked him, "Wherefore hast thou done on this wise?" "To-day," answered he, "there came from me a wrongous oath: on account of my inclination to thy daughter my heart is dark as night whereas her good name is whiter than my turband and ever bright.[FN#339] Furthermore an occasion befell and this oath fell from my mouth and I bade her be the owner of herself.[FN#340] And now will I beweep the past and straightway set her free." So saying he wrote a writ of repudiation and returning to Ja'afar said, "From early dawn I have wearied myself[FN#341] for thy sake and have so acted that no man can lay hand upon her. And at last thou mayst now enjoy life and go to the gardens and the Hammams and take thy pleasure until the days of her widowhood[FN#342] be gone by." Replied Ja'afar, "Allah quicken thee for what thou wroughtest of kindness to me," and Attaf rejoined, "Find for thyself something thou requirest, O my brother."[FN#343] Then he fell to taking him every day amongst the crowd of pleasure-seekers and solacing him with a show of joyous spectacles[FN#344] till the term of divorce had sped, when he said to the Wazir, "O Ja'afar, I would counsel thee with an especial counsel." "And what may it be, O my brother?" quoth the other; and quoth he, "Know, O my lord, that many of the folk have found the likeness between thy Honour and Ja'afar the Barmecide, wherefore must I fain act on this wise. I will bring thee a troop of ten Mamelukes and four servants on horseback, with whom do thou fare privily and by night forth the city and presently transmit to me tidings from outside the walls that thou the Grand Wazir, Ja'afar the Barmecide, art recalled to court and bound thither from Egypt upon business ordered by the Sultan. Hereat the Governor of Damascus, 'Abd al-Malik bin Marván[FN#345] and the Grandees of Syria will flock forth to meet and greet thee with fêtes and feasts, after which do thou send for the young lady's sire and of him ask her to wife. Then I