Hardly had Hasan made an end of his verses, when out came the Shaykh Abu al-Ruwaysh, a blackamoor and clad in black raiment, and at first sight he knew him by the description that Abd al-Kaddus had given him. He threw himself at his feet and rubbed his cheeks on them and seizing his skirt, laid it on his head and wept before him. Quoth the old man, "What wantest thou, O my son?" Whereupon he put out his hand to him with the letter, and Abu al-Ruwaysh took it and re-entered the cavern, without making him any answer. So Hasan sat down at the cave-mouth in his place other five days as he had been bidden, whilst concern grew upon him and terror redoubled on him and restlessness gat hold of him, and he fell to weeping and bemoaning himself for the anguish of estrangement and much watching. And he recited these couplets, "Glory to Him who guides the skies! * The lover sore in sorrow lies. Who hath not tasted of Love's food * Knows not what mean its miseries. Did I attempt to stem my tears * Rivers of blood would fount and rise. How many an intimate is hard * Of heart, and pains in sorest wise! An she with me her word would keep, * Of tears and sighs I'd fain devise, But I'm forgone, rejected quite * Ruin on me hath cast her eyes. At my fell pangs fell wildlings weep * And not a bird for me but cries." Hasan ceased not to weep till dawn of the sixth day, when Shaykh Abu al-Ruwaysh came forth to him, clad in white raiment, and with his hand signed[FN#114] to him to enter. So he went in, rejoicing and assured of the winning of his wish, and the old man took him by the hand and leading him into the cavern, fared on with him half a day's journey, till they reached an arched doorway with a door of steel. The Shaykh opened the door and they two entered a vestibule vaulted with onyx stones and arabesqued with gold, and they stayed not walking till they came to a great hall and a wide, paved and walled with marble. In its midst was a flower-garden containing all manner trees and flowers and fruits, with birds warbling on the boughs and singing the praises of Allah the Almighty Sovran; and there were four daďses, each facing other, and in each daďs a jetting fountain, at whose corners stood lions of red gold, spouting gerbes from their mouths into the basin. On each daďs stood a chair, whereon sat an elder, with exceeding store of books before him[FN#115] and censers of gold, containing fire and perfumes, and before each elder were students, who read the books to him. Now when the twain entered, the elders rose to them and did them honour; whereupon Abu al-Ruwaysh signed to them to dismiss their scholars and they did so. Then the four arose and seating themselves before that Shaykh, asked him of the case of Hasan to whom he said, "Tell the company thy tale and all that hath betided thee from the beginning of thine adventure to the end." So Hasan wept with sore