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This was grievous to him and he said, "How did she leave the palace, unknown of any? Had my kingdom been at stake in this, it were in a parlous case! Never again will I go a-hunting till I have sent to the gates those who shall keep good guard over them!" And he was sore vexed and heavy at heart for the loss of the princess Abrizeh.
In the excess of her alarm, she gave birth to thee at once, and at this moment there arose, in the direction of our country, a cloud of dust which spread till it covered the plain. At this sight, the slave feared for his life; so, in his rage, he smote Queen Abrizeh with his sword and slew her, then, mounting his horse, went his way.
"Call him, that I may talk with him," said the princess. So Merjaneh went out and said to the slave, "O Ghezban, God prosper thee, do thou fall in with what my lady says to thee." Then she took him by the hand and brought him to Abrizeh.
He sent his son Sherkan on an expedition, in company with this very Vizier Dendan; and Sherkan thy brother separated himself from the troops and fell in with thy mother Queen Abrizeh, in a privy garden of her palace, whither we had resorted to wrestle, she and I and her other damsels.
Betray me not, therefore, in the person of my guest, neither bring me into ill repute among men; but return to the King my father and kiss the earth before him and tell him that the case is not according to the report of the lady Dhat ed Dewahi." "O Abrizeh," replied the knight Masoureh, "I cannot go back to the King without his enemy."
She was wont to bribe those who served her desires with jewels and instruction; but Abrizeh held aloof from her and sought refuge with the All-Wise, the Omniscient; for well does the poet say: O thou that abasest thyself to those that are rich and great And lordest it with disdain o'er those of low estate, Thou that thinkest to gild thy baseness by gathering gold, The scenting of aught that's foul skills not its stench to abate!
He did so and she said to the rest of her servants, "Indeed, they deserved more than that." Then turning to Sherkan, she said to him, "Now that there hath become manifest to thee what was hidden, I will tell thee my story. Know, then, that I am the daughter of Herdoub, King of Roum; my name is Abrizeh and the old woman called Dhat ed Dewahi is my grandmother, my father's mother.
"None but the porters," replied they; whereupon she went up to Sherkan and embraced him, and he returned with her to the saloon, after he had made an end of the mellay. 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.
Nevertheless, he was greatly occupied with love of the princess Abrizeh and burnt with desire of her night and day; and every night, he would go in to her, and talk with her and pay his court to her, but she gave him no answer, saying only, "O King of the age, I have no desire for men at this present."
When they saw him and knew him, they dismounted and saluting him, asked the reason of his absence, whereupon he told them all that had passed between him and the princess Abrizeh from first to last.
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