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son, eat and restore thyself; and when thou art rested, tell me what hath happened to thee and what calamity hath befallen thee. I will not question thee now, because thou art weary.” So,[1] when he had eaten and drunken and had refreshed himself and was rested and restored, he said to her, “Alack, mother mine, I have a sore grief against thee in that thou leftest me to yonder accursed man, who strove for my destruction. Indeed, he sought to kill me; nay, I saw death face to face from that accursed wretch, whom thou deemedst mine uncle, and but for God the Most High, who delivered me from him, [I had perished]. Marry, both I and thou, O my mother, suffered ourselves to be deluded by him after the measure of that which the accursed promised to do with me of good and of the love which he professed for me. Know, then, O my mother, that this man is an accursed Maugrabin enchanter, a liar, a deceiver, an impostor and a hypocrite; methinketh the devils that be under the earth are not his match, may God put him to shame in every book![2] Hear, O my mother, what this accursed did; nay, all I shall tell thee is truth and soothfastness. Do but see the villain’s duplicity; bethink thee of the
