Now there
remained a few of the knights hidden in the cells of the convent,
and when Abrizeh saw this, she rose and going away, returned,
clad in a strait-ringed coat of mail and holding in her hand a
scimitar of Indian steel. And she said, "By the virtue of the
Messiah, I will not be grudging of myself for my guest nor will I
abandon him, though for this I abide a reproach in the land of
the Greeks!" Then she counted the dead and found that he had
slain fourscore of the knights and other twenty had taken flight.
When she saw how he had dealt with them, she said to him, "God
bless thee, O Sherkan! The cavaliers may well glory in the like
of thee!" Then he rose and wiping his sword of the blood of the
slain, repeated the following verses:
How often in battle I've cleft the array And given the champions
to wild beasts a prey!
Ask all men what happened to me and to them, When I drove through
the ranks on the sword-smiting day.
I left ail their lions of war overthrown: On the sun-scorched
sands of those countries they lay.
When he had finished, the princess came up to him and kissed his
hand; then she put off her coat of mail, and he said to her, "O
my lady, wherefore didst thou don that coat of mail and bare thy
sabre?" "It was of my care for thee against yonder wretches,"
replied she. Then she called the porters and said to them, "How
came you to let the king's men enter my house, without my leave!"
"O princess," replied they, "we have not used to need to ask
leave for the king's messengers, and especially for the chief of
the knights.
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