The wretched minister said: "Then I will kill your third child."
"If you kill him, what can I do but to submit to the will of God, and invoke his name?" The third son of the King was killed.
Questioned anew, the princess said again, "Never shall I marry you."
And the wicked minister said: "If you will not marry me, I will kill you, too."
Then the princess thought in her heart: "If I do not appear to yield, he will kill me, too, without a doubt. I must employ a trick." Then she said: "Await me here, until I wash from my clothes and my body the stains of my children's blood."
The minister accursed of God replied: "Very well. I await you here."
Then the princess Djouher went out of her tent. The rain was falling in torrents. The princess, fleeing precipitately, walked during the whole night, not knowing where she was going. She had walked many hours when day broke. The princess arrived thus near a tree in the midst of the plain, and, having measured its height with her eyes, she climbed into it. At this moment there passed along the road a merchant who had made his sales and was returning to the city of Bassrah. His name was Biyapri. Passing beneath the tree he raised his eyes and beheld a woman seated in the tree.
"Who are you?" he said; "are you woman or djinn?"
"I am neither demon nor djinn, but a descendant of the prophet of God (may blessings rest upon him), a disciple of the prophet Mahomet, envoy of God."
Biyapri climbed up the tree, put her on his camel, and taking up his journey conducted her to the country of Bassrah. Arriving at his house he desired to marry her. But she put him off saying: "Wait, for I have made a solemn vow before God not to look upon the face of a man for forty days. When the time expires, that will be possible. But if these forty days have not yet run I should surely die." So Biyapri installed her on his latticed roof and lavished attention and care upon her.