After Zobeide sat down, the whole company was silent for a while; at last Safie, sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, spoke to her sister Amine; Dear sister, I conjure you to rise up; you know well enough what I would say, Amine rose up, and went into another closet near to that where the bitches were, and brought out a case covered with yellow satin, richly embroidered with gold and green silk; she came near Safie, and opened the case, from whence she took a lute, and presented her, and, after some time spent in tuning it, Safie began to play, and, accompanying it with her voice, she sung a song about the torments that absence creates to lovers, with so much sweetness as to charm the caliph and all the company. Having sung with a great deal of passion and action, she said to lovely Amine, Pray take it, sister, for I can do no more; my voice fails me; oblige the company with a tune and song in my room. Very willingly, replied Amine, who, taking the lute from her sister Safie, sat down in her place. Amine, after a small trial to see whether the instrument was in tune, played and sung almost as long upon the same subject, but with so much vehemency, and was so much affected, or rather transported, by the words of the song, that her strength failed her as she made an end of it. Zobeide, willing to testify her satisfaction, said, Sister, you have done wonders, and we may easily see that you have a feeling of the grief you have expressed so much to the life. Amine was prevented from answering this civility, her heart being so sensibly touched at the same moment, that she was obliged, for air, to uncover her neck and breast, which did not appear so fair as might have been expected from such a lady; but, on the contrary, black and full of scars, which frightened all the spectators. This, however, gave her no ease, but she fell into a fit. While Zobeide and Safie ran to help their sister, one of the calenders could not forbear to say, We had better have slept in the streets than have come hither, had we thought to have seen such spectacles. The caliph, who heard this, came up to him and the other calenders, and asked them what might be the meaning of all this? They answered, Sir, we know no more than you do. What, says the caliph, are you not of the family? nor can you resolve us concerning the two black bitches and the lady that fainted away, and has been so basely abused? Sir, said the calenders, this is the first time that ever we were in the house, having come in but a few minutes before you.