present at the festival for the space of seven years. One year, it chanced that amongst the daughters of the great who resorted to the patron, as was their custom, came a daughter of the King of Constantinople, a beautiful girl called Sophia. They tarried at the monastery six days and on the seventh the folk went their ways;[FN#205] but Sophia said, 'I will not return to Constantinople save by water.' So they equipped for her a ship in which she embarked with her suite; and making sail they put out to sea; but as they were voyaging behold, a contrary wind caught them; and drove the vessel from her course till, as Fate and Fortune would have it, she fell in with a Nazarene craft from the Camphor Island[FN#206] carrying a crew of five hundred armed Franks, who had been cruising about a long time. When they sighted the sails of the ship, wherein Sophia and her women were, they gave chase in all haste and in less than an hour they came up with her, then they laid the grappling-irons aboard her and captured her. Then taking her in tow they made all sail for their own island and were but a little distant from it when the wind veered round and, splitting their sails, drove them on to a shoal which lies off our coast. Thereupon we sallied forth and, looking on them as spoil driven to us by Fate,[FN#207] boarded and took them; and, slaying the men, made prize of the wreck, wherein we found the treasures and rarities in question and forty maidens, amongst whom was the King's daughter, Sophia. After the capture we carried the Princess and her women to my father, not knowing her to be a daughter of King Afridun of Constantinople; and he chose out for himself ten including her; and divided the rest among his dependants. Presently he set apart five damsels, amongst whom was the King s daughter, and sent them to thy father, King Omar bin al-Nu'uman, together with other gifts, such as broadcloth[FN#208] and woollen stuffs and Grecian silks. Thy father accepted them; and chose out from amongst the five girls Sophia, daughter of King Afridun; nor did we hear more of her till the beginning of this year, when her father wrote to my father in words unfitting for me to repeat, rebuking him with menaces and saying to him: Two years ago, you plundered a ship of ours which had been seized by a band of Frankish pirates in which was my daughter, Sophia, attended by her maidens numbering some threescore. Yet ye informed me not thereof by messenger or otherwise; nor could I make the matter public, lest reproach befal me amongst the Kings, by reason of my daughter's honour. So I concealed my case till this year, when I wrote to certain Frankish corsairs and sought news of my daughter from the Kings of the Isles. They replied, 'By Allah we carried her not forth of thy realm; but we have heard that King Hardub rescued her from certain pirates. And they told me the whole tale.' Then he added in the writing which he writ to