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Then Princess Shamsah accosted the King and kissing his hand, said to him, 'Sire, be pleased to go up with me to the palace-roof and witness the slaughter of thy foes by my father's Marids. So he went up to the terrace-roof and sitting down there with his daughter-in-law, enjoyed watching the Marids do havoc among the besiegers and break a way through the length and breadth of them.
Quoth he, "This is a goodly place," and turned the descent-pin, whereupon the horse sank down with him like a weary bird, and alighted gently on the terrace-roof of the palace.
"If we saw a lover who pains as he ought, * Wi' love we would grant him all favours he sought." Quoth Abu al-Ayna, "There were in our street two women, one of whom had for lover a man and the other a beardless youth, and they foregathered one night on the terrace-roof of a house adjoining mine, knowing not that I was near.
At last, however, pretty late in the evening, I spied a large mansion with green lattice-work façade, and shaknisier, and terrace-roof, which had been hidden from me by the arcades of a bazaar, a vast open space at about the centre of Stamboul, one of the largest of the bazaars, I should think, in the middle of which stood the mansion, probably the home of pasha or vizier: for it had a very distinguished look in that place.
Now when a while of the night was past, he entered the water-closet and waited until his brother lay down on his bed and took patience till he was drowned in sleep, when he rose and going to the parapet of the terrace-roof, found standing there to await him the old man, who gave him his hand and carried him to the sitting-chamber, where he had made ready various dainties for his entertainment, and they sat down to carouse.
Meanwhile, news of the multitude of her lover's troops came to Hayat al-Nufus, who was still jailed by her sire's commandment, till they knew what he should order respecting her, whether pardon and release or death and burning; and she looked down from the terrace-roof of the palace and, turning towards the mountains, saw even these covered with armed men.
Count Zichy added a few bottles of excellent wine from Lebanon to the feast; and so we sat down to dinner without tables or chairs, as merry as mortals need desire to be. Here, as in most other Eastern towns, I had only to step out on the terrace-roof of the house to cause a crowd of old and young to collect, eager to see a Frankish woman in the costume of her country.
The goldsmith took note of the Minister's abiding place and waited some days, till he had devised a device to his desire; and one night of rain and thunder and stormy winds, he provided himself with thieves' tackle and repaired to the house of the Wazir who owned the damsel. Here he hanged a rope-ladder with grappling-irons to the battlements and climbed up to the terrace-roof of the palace.
He opened the first and I looked at it; and we did the same to the second; after which he said to me 'Of which shall I give thee the key? 'To whom doth the big house belong? 'To us! 'Open it, that I may view it. 'Thou hast no business there. 'Wherefore? 'Because it is haunted, and none nighteth there but in the morning he is a dead man; nor do we use to open the door, when removing the corpse, but mount the terrace-roof of one of the other two houses and take it up thence.
Then he took his drawn sword in his right and his grappling hook in his left and, repairing to the Caliph's sitting-saloon planted his scaling ladder and cast his grapnel on to the side of the terrace-roof; then, raising the trap-door, let himself down into the saloon, where he found the eunuchs asleep.
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