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my camel to thine abiding-place, barefoot and clad as he is.’
When the Khalif read her letter, he laughed long and loudly and wrote to El Hejjaj, bidding him do as she wished. The latter dared not disobey, so he submitted to the Khalif’s commandment and sent to Hind, bidding her make ready for the journey. So she made ready and mounted her litter, whilst her damsels and eunuchs rode about her. Then came El Hejjaj with his suite and dismounting at Hind’s door, took the halter of her camel and led it along, barefooted, whilst she and her damsels and tirewomen laughed and jeered at him and made mock of him. Then she said to her tirewoman, ‘Draw back the curtain of the litter;’ and she drew back the curtain, till Hind was face to face with El Hejjaj, whereupon she laughed at him and he recited the following verse:
O Hind, for all thy jeering, how many and many a night, Of yore I’ve left thee wakeful, lamenting for despite!
And she answered him with these:
We reck not, we, so that our life be safe and free our soul, Of what we lose of goods and gear; it worketh us no dole.
For wealth anew may gotten be and rank and power regained, If but man of malady and trouble be made whole.
And she ceased not to laugh at him and make sport of him, till they drew near the city of the Khalif, when she threw down a dinar and said to El Hejjaj, ‘O camel-driver, I have dropped a dirhem; look for it and give it me.’ So he looked and seeing nought but the dinar, said, ‘This is a dinar.’ ‘Nay,’ answered she, ‘it is a dirhem.’ But he said, ‘It is a dinar.’ Then said she, ‘Praised be God who hath given us a dinar in exchange for a paltry dirhem! Give it us.’ And he was abashed at this. Then he carried her to the palace of the Commander of the Faithful, and she went in to him and became his favourite.
