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found the Queen lying by me.Sheherazade was oblig’d to ſtop here, becauſe ſhe ſaw Day.
O Heaven! Siſter, ſays Dinarzade, how it troubles me that you can ſay no more, Siſter, replies the Sultaneſs, you ought to hav eawak’d me morecarly, it is your Fault. I will make amends next Night, replies Dinarzade, for I doubt not but the Sultan is as willing to hear out the Story as I am, and I hope he will he ſo good, as to let you live one Day more.
The Twenty Fourth Night.
DInarzade was good as her word, fhe call’d the Sultaneſs very early, ſaying, Dear Siſter, if you be not aſleep, pray make an end of the agreeable Hiſtory of the King of the Black-Iſles, I am ready to die with Impatience to know how he came to be chang’d into Marble. You ſhall hear it, replies Scheherazade, if the Sultan will give us leave.
I found the Queen lying by me then, ſays the King of the Black-Iſlands, | can’t tell you whether ſhe ſleep’d of not but I got up without making any Noiſe, and went to my Cloſet, where I made an end of dreffing my ſelf. I afterwards went and held my Council, and at my return, the Queen was clad in Mourning, her Hair hanging about her Eyes, and part of it pull’d off, preſented her ſelf before me, and ſaid ; Sir, I come to beg your Majeſty not to be ſurpriz’d to ſee men this Condition; three afflicting pieces of News I have juſt now receiv’d all at once, are the Cauſe of my heavy Grief, of which the Tokens you ſee are but very ſaint Reſemblances. Alas! what is that News, Madam, ſays I? The Death of the Queen my dear Mother, anſwers ſhe, that of the King my Father, kill’d in Battle, and that of one of my Brothers, who is ſallen headlong into a Pit.
I was not ill-pleas’d, that ſhe made uſe of this Pretext, to hide the true Cauſe of her Grief, and I thought ſhe had not ſuſpected me to have kill’d her Gallant, Madam, ſays I, I am ſo far from blaming your Grief, that I aſ-ſume
