" "What is
that?" asked Sherkan. "It is," replied she, "that thou return
with thy troops to thine own country." "O my lady," said he, "my
father, King Omar ben Ennuman, sent me to make war upon thy
father, on account of the treasure he took from the King of
Constantinople, and amongst the rest three great jewels, rich in
happy properties." "Reassure thyself," answered she; "I will tell
thee the truth of the matter and the cause of the feud between us
and the King of Constantinople. Know that we have a festival
called the Festival of the Monastery, for which each year the
kings' daughters of various countries and the wives and daughters
of the notables and merchants resort to a certain monastery and
abide there seven days. I was wont to resort thither with the
rest; but when there befell hostility between us, my father
forbade me to be present at the festival for the space of seven
years. One year, it chanced that amongst the young ladies who
resorted to the Festival as of wont, there came the King's
daughter of Constantinople, a handsome girl called Sufiyeh.
They tarried at the monastery six days, and on the seventh,
the folk went away; but Sufiyeh said, 'I will not return to
Constantinople, but by sea.' So they fitted her out a ship, in
which she embarked, she and her suite, and put out to sea; but as
they sailed, a contrary wind caught them and drove the ship from
her course, till, as fate and providence would have it, she fell
in with a ship of the Christians from the Island of Camphor, with
a crew of five hundred armed Franks, who had been cruising about
for some time.
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