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Then she cried out to her damsels to loose the twenty captives of Sharrkan's troop and dismount. They did as she bade and came and kissed the earth before her and Sharrkan who said to them, "It is the like of you that Kings keep in store for the need hour." Then he signed to his comrades to salute the Princess; so all alighted and kissed the earth before her, for they knew the story.
Thereupon he forthright summoned his secretaries of state and bade them write Sharrkan's patent of investiture to the viceroyalty of Damascus of Syria.
When Zau al-Makan saw him, he rose in honour; and the Religious stroked Sharrkan's wound with his hand, chanting somewhat of the Koran and repeating by way of talisman some of the verses of the Compassionate One. And the pretender ceased not to watch over him till dawn, when he came to himself and, opening his eyes, moved his tongue in his mouth and spake.
When Marjanah saw her master, she at once recognized him and her tears redoubled; and, when he came to himself, he questioned her and she told him all that had passed and said, "Of a truth he that hath slain thy daughter is a black slave belonging to King Omar bin al-Nu'uman, and she informed him how Sharrkan's father had dealt with the Princess.
When it was the Seventy-seventh Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Sharrkan's Chamberlain heard of the death of King Omar bin al- Nu'uman he mourned, but he rejoiced because of his wife and her brother Zau al-Makan who would become Sultan of Baghdad in his father's stead. So he turned to the Wazir Dandan and said to him, "Verily your tale is a wonder of wonders!
When the Wazir Dandan had finished his reciting, he wept with sore weeping and the tears rained from his eyes like cushioned pearls. Then came forward one who had been of Sharrkan's boon companions in his cups and he wept till ran in rills the drops, and he enumerated the dead man's generous qualities, reciting the following pentastichs,
When the lady beheld that swashingblow, Sharrkan's might was magnified in her sight and she knew that when she overthrew him in the wrestle it was not by her strength but by her beauty and loveliness. So she turned to the Knights and said, "Take wreak for your chief!"
Thereupon she sprang to her feet, as she were a scald she bear or a speckled snake, and drew from her waist cloth a dagger so poisoned that if laid thereon it would have melted a rock. Then she unsheathed the poniard and went up to Sharrkan's head and she drew the knife across his throat and severed his weasand and hewed off his head from his body.
But when he entered into Sharrkan's pavilion, he found the blood running like an aqueduct and saw the servants lying with their throats cut like beasts for food. At this he cried a cry which aroused all who were asleep; the folk hastened to him and, seeing the blood streaming, set up a clamour of weeping and wailing.
Now there is no help for it but that I work some guile and I contrive a wile whereby to slay the Sultan Zau al-Makan and the Wazir Dandan and the Chamberlain and Rustam and Bahram and ten thousand cavaliers of the army of Al-Islam; for it shall never be said that my son's head be paid with the bloodwit of Sharrkan's head; no, never!"
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