'
Then they embraced and bade each other farewell, and Asaad said
to the treasurer, 'God on thee, O uncle, spare me the sight of my
brother's agony and make me not drink of his anguish, but kill me
first, that it may be the easier for me.' Amjed said the like
and entreated the treasurer to kill him before Asaad, saying, 'My
brother is younger than I; so make me not taste of his anguish.'
And they both wept sore, whilst the treasurer wept for their
weeping, and they said to each other, 'All this comes of the
malice of those traitresses, our mothers; and this is the reward
of our forbearance towards them. But there is no power and no
virtue but in God the Most High, the Supreme! Verily, we are His
and unto Him we return.' And Asaad embraced his brother, sobbing
and repeating the following verses:
O Thou to whom the sad complain, to whom the fearful flee, Thou
that art evermore prepared for all that is to be,
Lord, there is left me no resource but at Thy door to knock; Yea,
at whose portal shall I knock, if Thou be deaf to me?
O Thou, the treasures of whose grace are in the one word "Be," Be
favourable, I beseech, for all good is with Thee!
When Amjed heard his brother's weeping, he wept also and pressed
him to his bosom, repeating the following verses:
O Thou, whose bounties unto me are more than one, I trow, Whose
favours lavished on my head are countless as the sand,
No blow of all the blows of fate has ever fall'n on me, But I
have found Thee ready still to take me by the hand.
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