believing that she should escape with her life, for she perceived of her cunning that his mother knew what was toward; and he said, "Go in peace." So she went her way, and his mother said to him, "O my son, blessed be this night, wherein God the Most High hath delivered thee from this accursed woman!" "How so?" asked he, and she told him the whole story. "O my mother," said he, "whoso is fated to live finds no slayer; nor, though he be slain, will he die; but now it were wise that we depart from amongst these enemies and let God do what He will." So, as soon as it was day, he left the city and joined the Vizier Dendan, and certain things befell between King Sasan and Nuzhet ez Zeman, which caused her also to leave the city and join herself to Kanmakan and Dendan, as did likewise such of the King's officers as inclined to their party. Then they took counsel together what they should do and agreed to make an expedition into the land of the Greeks and take their revenge for the death of King Omar ben Ennuman and his son Sherkan. So they set out with this intent and after adventures which it were tedious to set out, but the drift of which will appear from what follows, they fell into the hands of Rumzan, King of the Greeks. Next morning, King Rumzan caused Dendan and Kanmakan and their company to be brought before him and seating them at his side, bade spread the tables of food. So they ate and drank and took heart of grace, after having made sure of death, for that, when they were summoned to the King's presence, they said to one another, "He has not sent for us but to put us to death." Then said the King, "I have had a dream, which I related to the monks and they said, 'None can expound it to thee but the Vizier Dendan.'" "And what didst thou see in thy dream, O King of the age?" asked Dendan. "I dreamt," answered the King, "that I was in a pit, as it were a black well, where meseemed folk were tormenting me; and I would have risen, but fell on my feet and could not get out of the pit. Then I turned and saw on the ground a girdle of gold and put out my hand to take it; but when I raised it from the ground, I saw it was two girdles. So I girt my middle with them, and behold, they became one girdle; and this, O Vizier, is my dream and what I saw in sleep." "O our lord the Sultan," said Dendan, "this thy dream denotes that thou hast a brother or a brother's son or an uncle's son or other near kinsman of thy flesh and blood [of whom thou knowest not]." When the King heard this, he looked at Kanmakan and Dendan and Nuzhet ez Zeman and Kuzia Fekan and the rest of the captives and said in himself, "If I cut off these people's heads, their troops will lose heart for the loss of their chiefs and I shall be able to return speedily to my realm, lest the kingdom pass out of my hands." So he called the headsman and bade him strike off Kanmakan's head, when behold, up came Rumzan's nurse and said to