" "O Kings of the age," replied he, "the strangest thing
that ever happened to me was as follows. Two-and-twenty years
ago, being at Jerusalem, I saw a girl come out of the khan, who
was possessed of beauty and grace, albeit she was but a servant
and was clad in worn clothes, with a piece of camel-cloth on her
head; so I entrapped her by guile and setting her on a camel,
made off with her into the desert, thinking to carry her to my
own people and there set her to pasture the camels and collect
their dung (for fuel); but she wept so sore, that after beating
her soundly, I carried her to Damascus, where a merchant saw her
and being astounded at her beauty and accomplishments, bid me
more and more for her, till at last I sold her to him for a
hundred thousand dinars. I heard after that he clothed her
handsomely and presented her to the Viceroy of Damascus, who gave
him for her her price thrice told; and this, by my life, was but
little for such a damsel! This, O Kings of the age, is the
strangest thing that ever befell me." The two Kings wondered at
his story; but, when Nuzhet ez Zeman heard it, the light in her
face became darkness, and she cried out and said to her brother,
"Sure, this is the very Bedouin who kidnapped me in Jerusalem!"
And she told them all that she had endured from him in her
strangerhood of hardship and blows and hunger and humiliation,
adding, "And now it is lawful to me to slay him.
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