And these the words of another:—
She split my casque of courage with eye-swords that sorely smite; ✿ She pierced my patience' ring-mail with her shape like cane-spear light:
Patched by the musky mole on cheek was to our sight displayed ✿ Camphor set round with ambergris, light dawning through the night.[[198]]
Her soul was sorrowed and she bit carnelion stone with pearls ✿ Whose unions in a sugred tank ever to lurk unite:[[199]]
Restless she sighed and smote with palm the snows that clothe her breast, ✿ And left a mark whereon I looked and ne'er beheld such sight.
Pens, fashioned of her coral nails with ambergris for ink, ✿ Five lines on crystal page of breast did cruelly indite:
O swordsmen armed with trusty steel! I bid you all beware ✿ When she on you bends deadly glance which fascinates the sprite:
And guard thyself, O thou of spear! whenas she draweth near ✿ To tilt with slender quivering shape, likest the nut-brown spear.
And when Ali bin Bakkar ended his verse, he cried out with a great cry and fell down in a fit. Abu al-Hasan thought that his soul had fled his body and he ceased not from his swoon till daybreak, when he came to himself and talked with his friend, who continued to sit with him till the forenoon. Then he left him and repaired to his shop; and hardly had he opened it, when lo! the damsel came and stood by his side. As soon as he saw her, she made him a sign of salutation which he returned; and she delivered to him the greeting message of her mistress and asked, "How doth Ali bin Bakkar?" Answered he, "O handmaid of good, ask me not of his case nor what he suffereth for excess of love-longing; he sleepeth not by night neither resteth he by day; wakefulness wasteth him and care hath conquered him and his condition is a consternation to his friend." Quoth she, "My lady saluteth thee and him, and she hath written him a letter, for indeed she is in worse case than he; and she entrusted the same to me, saying:—Do not return save with the answer; and do thou obey my bidding. Here now is the letter, so say, wilt thou wend with me to him that we may get his reply?" "I hear and obey," answered Abu al-Hasan, and locking his shop and taking with him the girl he went, by a way different from that whereby he came, to Ali bin Bakkar's house, where he left her standing at the door and walked in——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
Now when it was the Hundred and Fifty-eighth Night,