the drink. By and by, he went out to obey a call of Nature and would have returned, but lost his way and entered the palace of Fakhr Taj. When she saw him, her reason fled and she cried out to her women saying, “Go forth from me to your own places!” So they withdrew and she rose and kissed Gharib’s hand, saying “Welcome to my lord, who delivered me from the Ghul! Indeed I am thine handmaid for ever and ever.” Then she drew him to her bed and embraced him, whereupon desire was hot upon him and he broke her seal and lay with her till the morning. Meanwhile the King thought that he had departed; but on the morrow he went in to him and Sabur rose to him and made him sit by his side. Then entered the tributary kings and kissing the ground stood ranged in rows on the right and left and fell to talking of Gharib’s velour and saying, “Extolled be He who gave him such prowess albeit he is so young in years!” As they were thus engaged, behold all espied from the palace-windows the dust of horse approaching and the King cried out to his scouts, saying, “Woe to you! Go and bring me news of yonder dust!” So a cavalier took horse and riding off, returned after a while, and said “O King, we found under that dust an hundred horse belonging to an Emir highs Sahim al-Layl.” Gharib hearing these words, cried out, “O my lord, this is my brother, whom I had sent on an errand, and I will go forth to meet him.” So saying, he mounted, with his hundred men of the Banu Kahtan and a thousand Persians, and rode to meet his brother in great state, but greatness belongeth to God alone.[FN#358] When the two came up with each other, they dismounted and embraced, and Gharib said to Sahim, “O my brother, hast thou brought our tribe to the Castle of Sasa and the Wady of Blossoms?” “O my brother,” replied Sahim, “when the perfidious dog Mardas heard that thou hadst made thee master of the stronghold belonging to the Mountain-Ghul, he was sore chagrined and said, Except I march hence, Gharib will come and carry off my daughter Mahdiyah without dower.’ So he took his daughter and his goods and set out with his tribe for the land of Irak, where he entered the city of Cufa and put himself under the protection of King Ajib, seeking to give him his daughter to wife.” When Gharib heard his brother’s story, he well-nigh gave up the ghost for rage and said, “By the virtue of the faith of Al-Islam, the faith of Abraham the Friend, and by the Supreme Lord, I will assuredly go to the land of Irak and fierce war upon it I will set on foot.” Then they returned to the city and going in to the King, kissed ground before him. He rose to Gharib and saluted Sahim; after which the elder brother told him what had happened and he put ten captains at his commandment, under each one’s hand ten thousand horse of the doughtiest of the Arabs and the Ajams, who equipped themselves and were ready to depart in three days. Then Gharib set out and journeyed till he reached the