“I will do what you please,” she said, “but, first, tell me who is the young man in the yellow kaftan?”
Then the Pelican began to describe his friend in such terms that the lady was filled with admiration, and calling a black slave, sent him immediately to the city. All that night she could not sleep for thinking of the young man in yellow, and, on the evening of full moon, she determined to see him for herself. So she bribed a servant to bring her the blue gown and black veil of a peasant woman, and, having dressed herself in them, she hid her own clothes in the jessamine-arbour in the garden and slipped out by a little hidden gate in the wall.
Now the black slave whom she had sent with the message was full of greed and cunning, so he went straight to the Prince on his return and said, “My lord, give me money, for I have discovered an infamous plot.”
And he told him how the lady had summoned a young man from the bazaar to meet her, at full moon, at the Sheikh’s tomb by the Nile. Prince Hassan was filled with rage, for in Egypt it is not the custom that ladies go alone to meet strange young men; and he also dressed himself and mounted his horse to ride to the tomb, having wrapped himself in a cloak that none might know him. The only person who was not on the road, journeying to the spot, was the Pelican.
The first to arrive at the tomb was the young man in yellow; his heart glowed, for he knew that the Pelican had sent the message and guessed that the wise bird had made this plan that he might meet his love. So he sat down to wait under the palm-trees and listened to the creak of the well-wheels in the fields. Presently he heard a footstep and saw a woman come gliding between the stems, but as he rushed forward to embrace her, he perceived that it was not the melon girl but a stranger.
“What are you doing here?” he cried, in wrath at his disappointment. “Off with you, or I will throw you into the river!”
The lady, who had hoped that her beauty would have made him fall in love with her on the spot, was terrified and ran away; but when she had gone a few yards, curiosity overcame her and she turned back, unnoticed by the young man, and slipped behind the tomb.