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I look to none but thee for my horse and clothes!" So the Wali questioned him and he told him what had passed between Dalilah and himself. The magistrate marvelled and asked him, "Why didst thou release her?"; and the Badawi answered, "I knew not that she was a felon."
He deposited all the coin with the Provost and they slept that night till the morning, when they set out again, intending for Baghdad, and fared on till they came to the Lion's Clump and the Wady of Dogs, where lay a villain Badawi, a brigand and his tribe, who sallied forth on them.
Then Ala al-Din seeing before him a watering tank and a cistern beside it, climbed up into a niche in the cistern and, stretching himself at full length, feigned to be asleep and said, "O gracious Protector, cover me with the veil of Thy protection which may not be torn away!" And behold, a scorpion stung the Badawi in the palm and he cried out, saying, "Help, O Arabs!
Then quoth the merchant to the Badawi, "O Shaykh of the Arabs, this slave is none of thine affair; so do thou sell her to me for what thou wilt." "Seventy thousand," said the merchant. "Allah will open!" repeated the Badawi: "this is not the capital spent upon her, for she hath eaten with me barley bread to the value of ninety thousand gold pieces."
My wish is baffled, my hopes cast down, * And distance forbids me to greet his face: O thou who passeth that dear one's door, * Say for me, these tears shall flow evermore!" When she had finished her verses, the Badawi came up to her and, taking compassion on her, bespoke her kindly and wiped away her tears.
The merchant rejoined, "Thou and thine and all thy tribe in the length of your lives have not eaten a thousand ducats' worth of barley; but I will say thee one word, wherewith if thou be not satisfied, I will set the Viceroy of Damascus on thee and he will take her from thee by force." The Badawi continued, "Say on!" "An hundred thousand," quoth the merchant.
And her nephew Kanmakan said to her, "O my aunt, let him tell us his tale, and after that do with him as thou wilt." So she held her hand and the Kings said to him, "Now let us hear thy history." Quoth he, "O Kings of the Age, if I tell you a rare tale will ye pardon me?" "Yes," answered they. Then the Badawi robber-chief began, The Tale of Hammad the Badawi.
Therewith Gharib crave at him and there befel between them a battle such as would make a new-born child turn grey and melt the flinty rock with its sore affray; but presently the Badawi did off his face-veil, and lo! it was Gharib's half- brother Sahim al-Layl.
So he fell into the trap and unbound her; whereupon she bound him in her stead, after she had stripped him of his clothes and turband and put them on; then covering herself with his burnouse and mounting his horse, she rode to her house, where Zaynab asked her, "What meaneth this plight?"; and she answered, "They crucified me;" and told her all that had befallen her with the Badawi.
So she related to him all that had befallen her from beginning to end, how she had left her brother sick in the Sanctified City, Jerusalem, and how the Badawi had kidnapped her and had sold her to the trader. When Sharrkan heard this, he was certified of her being his sister on the sword side and said to himself, "How can I have my sister to wife?
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