"O spare me, thou Ghazban, indeed enow for me * Are heavy strokes of time, mischance and misery! Whoredom my Lord forfends to all humanity; * Quoth He, 'Who breaks my bidding Hell for home shall see!' And if thou leave not suing me to whoredom's way * Against th' Almighty's choicest gift, my chastity, Upon my tribesmen I with might and main will call * And gather all, however far or near they be; And with Yamáni blade were I in pieces hewn, * Ne'er shall he sight my face who makes for villeiny, The face of free-born come of noble folk and brave; * What then can be to me the seed of whoreson slave?" When Ghazban heard these lines he was wroth exceedingly; his eyes reddened with blood and his face became a dusty-grey[FN#224]; his nostrils swelled, his lips protruded and the repulsiveness of his aspect redoubled. And he repeated these couplets, "Ho thou, Abrizah, mercy! leave me not for I * Of thy love and Yamáni[FN#225] glance the victim lie My heart is cut to pieces by thy cruelty, * My body wasted and my patience done to die: From glances ravishing all hearts with witchery * Reason far flies, the while desire to thee draws nigh; Though at thy call should armies fill the face of earth * E'en now I'd win my wish and worlds in arms defy!" When Abrizah heard these words, she wept with sore weeping and said to him, "Woe to thee, O Ghazban! How dareth the like of thee to address me such demand, O base-born and obscene-bred? Dost thou deem all folk are alike?" When the vile slave heard this from her, he waxt more enraged and his eyes grew redder: and he came up to her and smiting her with the sword on her neck wounded her to the death. Then he drove her horse before him with the treasure and made off with himself to the mountains. Such was the case with Al-Ghazban; but as regards Abrizah, she gave birth to a son, like the moon, and Marjanah took the babe and did him the necessary offices and laid him by his mother's side; and lo and behold! the child fastened to its mother's breast and she dying.[FN#226] When Marjanah saw this, she cried out with a grievous cry and rent her raiment and cast dust on her head and buffeted her cheeks till blood flowed, saying, "Alas, my mistress! Alas, the pity of it! Thou art dead by the hand of a worthless black slave, after all thy knightly prowess!" And she ceased not weeping when suddenly a great cloud of dust arose and walled the horizon;[FN#227] but, after awhile, it lifted and discovered a numerous conquering host. Now this was the army of King Hardub, Princess Abrizah's father, and the cause of his coming was that when he heard of his daughter and her handmaids having fled to Baghdad, and that they were with King Omar bin al- Nu'uman, he had come forth, leading those with him, to seek tidings of her from travellers who might have seen her with the King. When he had gone a single day's march from his capital, he espied three horse men afar off and made