not to pledge her till drunkenness crept into her head; and seeing this he took out the bit of Bhang from his pocket and, holding it between his fingers, filled a cup with his own hand and drank it off. Then filling a second he said, "To thy companionship!"; and dropped the drug into her cup, she knowing naught of it. She took it and drank it off; then she rose and went to her sleeping-chamber. He waited for less than an hour till he was assured that the dose had taken effect on her and had robbed her of her senses, when he went in to her and found her thrown on her back: and she had doffed her petticoat trousers and the air raised the skirt of her shift and discovered what was between her thighs. When the King saw the state of things and found a lighted candle at her head and another at her feet, shining upon what her thighs enshrined he took leave of his five senses for lust and Satan seduced him and he could not master himself, but put off his trousers and fell upon her and abated her maidenhead. Then he rose off her and went to one of her women, by name Marjánah, and said, "Go in to thy lady and speak with her." So she went in to her mistress and found her lying on her back insensible, with the blood running down to the calves of her legs, whereupon she took a kerchief and wiped away the blood and lay by her that night. As soon as Almighty Allah brought the dawn, the handmaid Marjanah washed her mistress's hands and feet and brought rose-water and bathed her face and mouth with it, whereupon she sneezed and yawned and cast up from her inside that bit of Bhang like a bolus.[FN#220] Then she revived and washed her hands and mouth and said to Marjanah, "Tell me what hath befallen me." So she told her what had passed and how she had found her, lying on her back, with the blood running down, wherefore she knew that King Omar bin al-Nu'uman had lain with her and had undone her and taken his will of her. At this she grieved with exceeding grief and retired into privacy, saying to her damsels, "Deny me to whoso would come in to me and say to him that I am ill, till I see what Allah will do with me." Presently the news of her sickness came to the King; so he sent her sherbets and sugar electuaries. Some months she thus passed in solitude, during which time the King's flame cooled and his desire for her was quenched, so that he abstained from her. Now she had conceived by him, and when the months of child-breeding had gone by, her pregnancy appeared and her belly swelled, and the world was straitened upon her, so she said to her handmaid Marjanah, "Know that it is not the folk who have wronged me, but I who sinned against my own self[FN#221] in that I left my father and mother and country. Indeed, I abhor life, for my spirit is broken and neither courage nor strength is left me. I used, when I mounted my steed, to have the mastery of him, but now I am unable to ride. If I be brought to bed among them I shall be dishonoured before my