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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!’
Then the Vizier rose from off his breast, saying, ‘O my son, I forgive thee!’ for his heart was softened. Noureddin rose and kissed the hand of his father, who said to him, ‘If I knew that thou wouldst deal fairly by Enis el Jelis, I would give her to thee.’ ‘O my father,’ replied Noureddin, ‘how should I not deal fairly by her?’ Quoth the Vizier, ‘O my son, I charge thee not to take another wife nor concubine to share with her nor sell her.’ ‘O my father,’ answered Noureddin, ‘I swear to thee that I will do none of these things.’ Then he went in to the damsel and abode with her a whole year, whilst God caused the King to forget the affair. The matter, indeed, came to Muïn’s ears, but he dared not speak of it, by reason of the favour in which the Vizier Fezl stood with the Sultan. At the end of the year, the Vizier Fezl went one day to the bath and coming out, whilst still in a sweat, the air smote him and he caught cold and took to his bed. His malady
