Thereupon she took her sash, wound it about her throat, stepped upon a wretched stool, and threw the other end of the sash over a beam in the roof. She was upon the point of being strangled when the prince and his faithful Ahmed broke into the room, caught her in their arms, and brought her to the floor.
“Ah, my sultana!” said the prince, very tenderly, “so it was thou who watched beside me during those bitter days! Why hast thou kept this long silence?”
“Because I believed in Allah,” was the reply. [[60]]“If he so willed my life, I must not try to change it But I was unable longer to bear it.”
“Henceforth art thou my beloved,” said the prince. And he kissed her three times upon the forehead. “This other, who won thy place through falsehood, shall receive her just deserts.”
He then conducted the real sultana from the wretched room into a most beautiful chamber, seated her upon a divan rich with cloth of gold, then commanded very tenderly—for his heart was touched with her suffering, “Remain here, my beloved, until I return to thee.”
He then went to the bedside of the false one, struck her with his stick, and called fiercely: “Haste thee! Arise to receive thy just punishment for the evil which thou hast brought upon thy innocent mistress.”
The slave fell upon her face before him and besought his pardon. But he would not listen. “Wilt thou have forty blows or shall forty crows be summoned to bear thee out into the night?” he demanded.
“O!” cried she, “let the forty blows fall upon the heads of my enemies! I ask that forty crows come. Perchance they will bear me back to my home.”
Thereupon, at the prince’s command, slaves brought a basket, lifted and placed her within it, [[61]]then opened a window overlooking the sea. Forty giant crows came, seized upon the basket with their beaks, and flew so far away that neither the prince nor his beautiful sultana ever heard of her again.
Then the young girl, who had been rescued from death by the prince, begged that messengers be sent to relate her good fortune to her mother—if haply she were yet alive—and that a camel might also be taken to fetch her to their marriage feast.