"O Wazir," he continued, "know that Allah (be He extolled and exalted!) will do whatso He will!" "O Ali," replied he, "thinkest thou to frighten me with such talk? I mean this very day to smite thy neck despite the noses of the Bassorah folk and I care not; let the days do as they please; nor will I turn me to thy counsel but rather to what the poet saith, 'Leave thou the days to breed their ban and bate, * And make thee strong t' upbear the weight of Fate.' And also how excellently saith another, 'Whoso shall see the death-day of his foe, * One day surviving, wins his bestest wish.'" Then he ordered his attendants to mount Nur al-Din upon the bare back of a mule; and they said to the youth (for truly it was irksome to them), "Let us stone him and cut him down though our lives go for it." But Nur al-Din said to them, "Do not so: have ye not heard the saying of the poet, 'Needs must I bear the term by Fate decreed, * And when that day be dead needs must I die: If lions dragged me to their forest-lair, * Safe should I live till draw my death-day nigh.'" Then they proceeded to proclaim before Nur al-Din, "This is the least of the retribution for him who imposeth upon Kings with forgeries." And they ceased not parading him round about Bassorah, till they made him stand beneath the palace-windows and set him upon the leather of blood,[FN#74] and the sworder came up to him and said, "O my lord, I am but a slave commanded in this matter: an thou have any desire, tell it me that I may fulfil it, for now there remaineth of they life only so much as may be till the Sultan shall put his face out of the lattice." Thereupon Nur al-Din looked to the right and to the left, and before him and behind him and began improvising, "The sword, the sworder and the blood-skin waiting me I sight, * And cry, Alack, mine evil fate! ah, my calamity! How is't I see no loving friend with eye of sense or soul? * What! no one here? I cry to all: will none reply to me? The time is past that formed my life, my death term draweth nigh, * Will no man win the grace of God showing me clemency; And look with pity on my state, and clear my dark despair, * E'en with a draught of water dealt to cool death's agony?"