"How shall he taste of sleep who lacks repose * Who wakes a-night when all in slumber wone? He ownčd wealth and family and fame * Yet fared from house and home an exile lone: Live coal beneath his[FN#80] ribs he bears for bane, * And mighty longing, mightier ne'er was known: Passion hath seized him, Passion mastered him; * Yet is he constant while he maketh moan: His case for Love proclaimeth aye that he, * (As prove his tears) is wretched, woebegone." When Hasan heard his mother weeping and wailing he wept also and knocked at the door a loud knock. Quoth she, "Who is at the door?"; and quoth he, "Open!" Whereupon she opened the door and knowing him at first sight fell down in a fainting fit; but he ceased not to tend her till she came to herself, when he embraced her and she embraced him and kissed him, whilst his wife looked on mother and son. Then he carried his goods and gear into the house, whilst his mother, for that her heart was comforted and Allah had reunited her with her son versified with these couplets, "Fortune had ruth upon my plight * Pitied my long long bane and blight; Gave me what I would liefest sight; * And set me free from all afright. So pardon I the sin that sin * nčd she in days evanisht quite; E'en to the sin she sinned when she * Bleached my hair-parting silvern white." —And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say. When it was the Seven Hundred and Ninety-third Night, She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Hasan with his mother then sat talking and she asked him, "How faredst thou, O my son, with the Persian?" whereto he answered, "O my mother, he was no Persian, but a Magian, who worshipped the fire, not the All-powerful Sire." Then he told her how he dealt with him, in that he had journeyed with him to the Mountain of Clouds and sewed him up in the camel's skin, and how the vultures had taken him up and set him down on the summit and what he had seen there of dead folk, whom the Magian had deluded and left to die on the crest after they had done his desire. And he told her how he had cast himself from the mountain-top into the sea and Allah the Most High had preserved him and brought him to the palace of the seven Princesses and how the youngest of them had taken him to brother and he had sojourned with them till the Almighty brought the Magian to the place where he was and he slew him. Moreover, he told her of his passion for the King's daughter and how he had made prize of her and of his seeing her[FN#81] in sleep and all else that had befallen him up to the time when Allah vouchsafed them reunion. She wondered at his story and praised the Lord who had restored him to her in health and safety. Then she arose and examined the baggage and loads and questioned him of them. So he told her what was in them, whereat she joyed with exceeding joy. Then she went up to the King's