Then Muin will say, "O my lord, thou knowest that I give thee true counsel, but I am not in favour with thee." Thereupon the Sultan will make an example of me, and I shall be a gazing-stock to all the people and my life will be lost.' Quoth his wife, 'Tell none of this thing, which has happened privily, but commit thy case to God and trust in Him to deliver thee from this strait.' With this the Vizier's heart was set at rest, and his wrath and chagrin subsided. Meanwhile, Noureddin, fearing the issue of the affair, spent the whole day in the gardens and came back by night to his mother's apartment, where he slept and rising before day, returned to the gardens. He lived thus for a whole month, not showing his face to his father, till at last his mother said to the Vizier, 'O my lord, shall we lose our own son as well as the damsel? If things continue thus for long, the lad will flee forth from us.' 'What is to be done?' said he: and she answered, 'Do thou watch this night, and when he comes, seize on him and frighten him. I will rescue him from thee and do thou then make peace with him and give him the girl, for she loves him and he her; and I will pay thee her price.' So the Vizier watched that night and when his son came, he seized him and throwing him down, knelt on his breast and made as if he would cut his throat; but his mother came to his succour and said to her husband, 'What wilt thou do with him?' Quoth he, 'I mean to kill him.' And Noureddin said to his father 'Am I of so little account with thee?' Whereupon the Vizier's eyes filled with tears and he replied, 'O my son, is the loss of my goods and my life of so little account in thine eyes?' Quoth Noureddin, 'Hear, O my father, what the poet says: Pardon me: true, I have sinned: yet the sagacious man Ceases never to pardon freely the erring wight. Surely, therefore, thy foe may hope for pardon from thee, Since he is in the abyss and thou on honour's height!'