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Schemselnihar at last presented the third cup to Ebn Thaher, who thanked her for her kindness, and for the honour she did him. After this she took a lute from one of her women, and sung to it in such a passionate manner, that she seemed to be transported out of herself: and the prince of Persia stood with his eyes fixed upon her, as if he had been enchanted.
And none of Ebn Haroun's friends did aught, for the world knew through whom it was that Seti lived and land was hard to keep in Manfaloot and the prison near. But one day a kavass of the Khedive swooped down on Manfaloot, and twenty young men were carried off in conscription. Among them was Seti, now married to Ahassa, the fellah maid for whom the grindstone had fallen on Ebn Haroun's head.
An instant afterwards a shot from the other gun fired by the unwounded pasha, who, in his youth, had been an officer of artillery, added to the confusion in the swerving ranks, and the force hesitated; and now from Ebn Ezra Bey's river steamers, which had just arrived, there came a flank fire. The force wavered. From David's gun another shot made havoc. They turned and fell back quickly.
Seti then had weighed his chances, had seen the avenging friends of Ebn Haroun behind the ghaffirs, and therefore permitted himself to be marched off to the mudirieh.
"Read this," he added, and put a letter from Nahoum into Ebn Ezra's hand. Lacey reverently covered Achmet's face. "Say, he got what he wanted," he said again. It was many a day since the Duchess of Snowdon had seen a sunrise, and the one on which she now gazed from the deck of the dahabieh Nefert, filled her with a strange new sense of discovery and revelation.
His biographers give no further particulars of his life beyond mentioning, that he wrote several valuable treatises on his art, all of which, however, have been lost. His death happened in the year 954. Avicenna, whose real name was Ebn Cinna, another great alchymist, was born at Bokhara, in 980.
The chief of the eunuchs and his retinue being gone, Schemselnihar returned to the saloon, extremely concerned at the necessity she was under of sending back the prince of Persia sooner than she had intended. She came up to him again with tears in her eyes, which heightened Ebn Thaher's fear, who thought it no good omen.
She no sooner entered her palace, than she sent to Ebn Thaher the woman she had pointed out to him, and in whom she placed all her confidence, to tell him to come and see her without delay, and bring the prince of Persia with him.
The best you can expect, answered Ebn Thaher; you are as dearly beloved as you love; Schemselnihar's confident is in your drawing room; she has brought you a letter from her mistress, and waits for your orders to come in. Let her come in! cried the prince, with a transport of joy; and, speaking thus, sat down to receive her.
Tell me, I conjure you," added he, "what cruel lady is this, who forces people to love her, without giving them time to reflect?" "My lord," answered Ebn Thaher, "this is the celebrated Schemselnihar, the principal favourite of the caliph, our master." "She is justly so called," added the prince, "since she is more beautiful than the sun at noonday."
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