"My spirit urged me, once upon a time, to go forth into the country of the Infidels; and I strove with it and struggled to put away from me this inclination; but it would not be rejected. So I fared forth and journeyed about the land of the Unbelievers and traversed it in all its parts; for divine grace enveloped me and heavenly protection encompassed me, so that I met not a single Nazarene but he turned away his eyes and drew off from me, till I came to a certain great city at whose gate I found a gathering of black slaves, clad in armour and bearing iron maces in their hands. When they saw me, they rose to their feet and asked me, 'Are you a leach?'; and I answered, 'Yes.' They said, 'Come speak to our King,' and carried me before their ruler, who was a handsome personage of majestic presence. When I stood before him, he looked at me and said, 'Art a physician, you?' 'Yes,' I said; and he to his officers, said, 'Carry him to her, and acquaint him with the condition before he enter.' So they took me out and said to me,

'Know that the King has a daughter, and she is stricken with a sore disease, which no doctor has been able to cure: and no leach goes in to her and treats, without healing her, but the King puts him to death. So bethink you what you see fitting to do.' I replied, 'The King drove me to her; so carry me to her.' Thereupon they brought me to her door and knocked; and behold, I heard her cry out from within, saying, 'Admit to me the physician, lord of the wondrous secret!' And she began reciting,

'Open the door! the leach now draws near; And in my soul a wondrous secret speer: How many of the near far distant are! How many distant far are nearest near!: I was in strangerhood amidst you all: But willed the Truth my solace should appear. Joined us the potent bonds of Faith and Creed; We met as dearest fere greets dearest fere: He sued for interview whenas pursued The spy, and blamed us envy's jibe and jeer: Then leave your chiding and from blame desist, For fie upon you! not a word I'll hear. I care for nothing that disappears and fleets, My care's for Things nor fleet nor disappear.'

And lo! a Shaykh, a very old man, opened the door in haste and said to me, 'Enter.' So I entered and found myself in a chamber strewn with sweet scented herbs and with a curtain drawn across one corner, from behind which came a sound of groaning and grame, weak as from an emaciated frame. I sat down before the curtain and was about to offer my salam when I bethought me of his words (whom Allah save and assain!), 'Accost not a Jew nor a Christian with the salam salutation; and, when you meet them

Christian King's Daughter and the Moslem. 285 in the way, constrain them to the straitest part of it.' So I withheld my salutation, but she cried out from behind the curtain, saying, 'Where is the salutation of Unity and Indivisibility, O Khawwas?' I was astonished at her speech and asked, 'How know you me?'; whereto she answered, 'When the heart and thoughts are whole, the tongue speaks eloquently from the secret recesses of the soul. I begged Him yesterday to send me one of His saints, at whose hands I might have deliverance, and behold, it was cried to me from the dark places of my house, 'Grieve not; for we soon will send you Ibrahim the Basket maker.' Then I he asked, 'What of you?' and she answered, 'It is now four years since there appeared to me the Manifest Truth, and He is the Relator and the Ally, and the Uniter and the Sitter by; whereupon my folk looked askance upon me with an evil eye and taxed me with insanity and suspected me of depravity, and there came not in to me doctor but terrified me, nor visitor but confounded me.' I, said, 'And who led you to the knowledge of what you know?' She said, 'The manifest signs and visible portents of Allah; and, when the path is patent to you, you espiest with yours own eyes both proof and prover.' Now whilst we were talking, behold, in came the old man appointed to guard her and said, 'What does your doctor?'; and she replied, 'He knows the hurt and has hit upon the healing.'"—

When it was the Four Hundred and Seventy eighth night

And they tell a tale of