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face, fell asleep. As soon as it was day, I arose and donning my clothes, made the ablution and prayed such prayers as were due from me. Then I said to my host, “O brother of the Arabs, wilt thou add to thy favours by directing me into the right road?” “At thy leisure, O chief of the Arabs,” answered he. “The time of a guest’s stay is three days, and I am not one to let thee go before that time.”
So I abode with him three days, and on the fourth day, as we sat talking, I asked him of his name and lineage. Quoth he, “As for my lineage, I am of the Benou Udhreh; my name is such an one, son of such an one and my father’s brother is called such an one.” And behold, O Commander of the Faithful, he was the son of my father’s brother and of the noblest house of the Benou Udhreh. “O my cousin,” said I, “what moved thee to leave thy fair estate and that of thy fathers and thy slaves and handmaids and seclude thyself alone in this desert?” When he heard my words, his eyes filled with tears and he replied, saying, “Know, O my cousin, that I was passionately enamoured of the daughter of my father’s brother and distracted for love of her; so I sought her in marriage of her father, but he refused and married her to a man of the Benou Udhreh, who went in to her and carried her to his abiding-place this last year. When she became thus removed from me and I was prevented from looking on her, the pangs of passion and excess of love-longing and desire drove me to forsake my people and friends and fortune and take up my abode in this desert, where I have grown used to my solitude.” “Where are their dwellings?” asked I. And he said, “They are hard by, on the top of yonder hill; and every night, at the dead time when all eyes sleep, she steals secretly out of the camp, unseen of any, and I satisfy my desire of her converse and she of mine.” So I abide thus, comforting [or solacing] myself with her [company] a part of the night, till God accomplish that which is to be;
