All this he did to please me. Then, seeing him to be
somewhat restored, I told him what had befallen me with the
slave-girl, none else hearing me, and said to him, 'I know what
thou sufferest; but take heart and be of good courage; for
henceforth nought shall betide thee, but what shall rejoice thee
and ease thine heart.' He smiled and called for food, which being
brought, he signed to his servants, and they withdrew. Then said
he to me, 'O my brother, thou seest what hath befallen me;' and
he made his excuses to me and enquired how I had fared all that
while. I told him all that had befallen me, from first to last,
at which he wondered and calling his servants, said, 'Bring me
such and such things.' Accordingly, they brought in rich carpets
and hangings and utensils of gold and silver, more than I had
lost, and he gave them all to me; so I sent them to my house and
abode with him that night. When the day began to break, he said
to me, 'To everything there is an end, and the end of love is
death or enjoyment. I am nearer unto death, would I had died ere
this befell! For, had not God favoured us, we had been discovered
and put to shame. And now I know not what shall deliver me from
this my strait, and were it not that I fear God, I would hasten
my own death; for know, O my brother, that I am like the bird in
the cage and that my life is of a surety perished, by reason of
the distresses that have befallen me; yet hath it a fixed period
and an appointed term.
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