' The merchant did the
bidding of the Khalif, who write a letter to Alaeddin, as from
his father Shemseddin, and committed it to the slave, together
with the fifty loads and a basin and ewer of gold and other
presents, saying to him, 'Take these bales and what else and go
to such and such a quarter and enquire for Alaeddin Abou esh
Shamat, at the house of the Provost of the merchants.' So the
slave took the letter and the goods and went out on his errand.
Meanwhile the lady's first husband went to her father and said to
him, 'Come, let us go to Alaeddin and make him divorce my
cousin.' So they set out, and when they came to the street in
which Zubeideh's house stood, they found fifty mules, laden with
stuffs, and a black slave riding on a she-mule. So they said to
him, 'Whose goods are these?' 'They belong to my lord Alaeddin
Abou esh Shamat,' answered he. 'His father equipped him with
merchandise and sent him on a journey to Baghdad; but the
Bedouins fell on him and took all he had. So when the news of his
despoilment reached his father, he despatched me to him with
these fifty loads, in place of those he had lost, besides a mule
laden with fifth thousand dinars and a parcel of clothes worth
much money and a cloak of sables and a basin and ewer of gold.
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