Wherefore his credit redoubled with al-Nasir; but, after a while, one of his enemies maligned him to the King, alleging that there still lurked in him a hot lust for the boy and that he ceased not to desire him, whenever the cool northern breezes moved him, and to gnash his teeth for having given him away. Cried the King, “Wag not thou thy tongue at him, or I will shear off thy head.” However, he wrote Abu Amir a letter, as from the boy, to the following effect: “O my lord, thou knowest that thou wast all and one to me and that I never ceased from delight with thee. Albeit I am with the Sultan, yet would I choose rather solitude with thee, but that I fear the King’s majesty: wherefore devise thou to demand me of him.” This letter he sent to Abu Amir by a little foot page, whom he enjoined to say, “This is from such an one: the King never speaketh to him.” When the Wazir read the letter and heard the cheating message, he noted the poison draught[FN#178] and wrote on the back of the note these couplets, “Shall man experience-lectured ever care * Fool-like to thrust his head in lion’s lair? I’m none of those whose wits to love succumb * Nor witless of the snares my foes prepare: Wert thou my sprite, I’d give thee loyally; * Shall sprite, from body sundered, backwards fare?” When al-Nasir knew of this answer, he marvelled at the Wazir’s quickness of wit and would never again lend ear to aught of insinuations against him. Then said he to him, “How didst thou escape falling into the net?” And he replied, “Because my reason is unentangled in the toils of passion.” And they also tell a tale of THE ROGUERIES OF DALILAH THE CRAFTY AND HER DAUGHTER ZAYNAB THE CONEY-CATCHER.[FN#179]