" So
they took him off the ass and setting him on a horse, carried him
along with the caravan, surrounded by the pages, to whom said the
eunuch, "If a hair of him be missing, it shall be the worse for you."
But he bade them privily treat him with consideration and not
humiliate him. When the stoker saw himself in this case, he gave
himself up for lost and turning to the eunuch, said to him, "O chief,
I am neither this youth's brother nor anywise akin to him; but I
was a stoker in a bath and found him lying asleep on the fuel-heap."
Then the caravan fared on and the stoker wept and imagined a
thousand things in himself, whilst the eunuch walked by his side
and told him nothing, but said to him, "You disturbed our mistress
by reciting verses, thou and the lad: but have no fear for thyself."
This he said, laughing at him the while in himself. When the
caravan halted, they brought them food, and he and the eunuch ate
from one dish. Then the eunuch let bring a gugglet of sherbet of
sugar and after drinking himself, gave it to the stoker, who drank;
but all the while his tears ceased not flowing, out of fear for
himself and grief for his separation from Zoulmekan and for what
had befallen them in their strangerhood. So they travelled on with
the caravan, whilst the Chamberlain now rode by the door of his
wife's litter, in attendance on Zoulmekan and the princess, and now
gave an eye to the stoker, and Nuzhet ez Zeman and her brother
occupied themselves with converse and mutual condolence; and so they
did till they came within three days' journey of Baghdad.
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