The eunuch took it, knowing not what
the future hid for him, (for He who knoweth the hidden things
ordereth events according to His will,) and going in to the
prince, kissed the earth before him and gave him the letter. He
opened it and reading it, was ware that his father's wife was in
intent an adulteress and a traitress to her husband; whereat he
was exceeding wroth and railed at women and their works, saying,
'May God curse women, the traitresses, that lack reason and
religion!' Then he drew his sword and said to the eunuch, 'Out
on thee, thou wicked slave! Dost thou carry adulterous messages
for thy lord's wife? By Allah, there is no good in thee, O black
of hue and heart, O foul of face and nature!' So saying, he
smote him on the neck and severed his head from his body; then,
folding the letter in the handkerchief, he thrust it into his
pocket and went in to his own mother and told her what had
passed, reviling and reproaching her and saying, 'Each one of you
is worse than the other; and by God the Great, did I not fear to
transgress against the rights of my father and my brother Asaad,
I would assuredly go in to her and cut off her head, even as I
cut off that of her eunuch!' Then he went out in a great rage;
and when the news reached Queen Heyat en Nufous of what he had
done with her messenger, she reviled him and cursed him and
plotted perfidy against him.
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