heavy-leaved flower is withered and refreshed by sun and dews. Surely,
the youth ceased not to listen, and oblivion of cares and aught other in
this life, save that hidden luting and piping, pillowed his drowsy head.
At last there was a pause, and it seemed every maze of music had been
wandered through. Opening his eyes hurriedly, as with the loss of the
music his own breath had gone likewise, he beheld a garden golden with
the light of lamps hung profusely from branches and twigs of trees by the
glowing cheeks of fruits, apple and grape, pomegranate and quince; and he
was reclining on a bank piled with purple cushions, his limbs clad in the
richest figured silks, fringed like the ends of clouds round the sun,
with amber fringes. He started up, striving to recall the confused memory
of his adventures and what evil had befallen him, and he would have
struggled with the vision of these glories, but it mastered him with the
strength of a potent drug, so that the very name of his betrothed was
forgotten by him, and he knew not whither he would, or the thing he
wished for. Now, when he had risen from the soft green bank that was his
couch, lo, at his feet a damsel weeping! So he lifted her by the hand,
and she arose and looked at him, and began plaining of love and its
tyrannies, softening him, already softened. Then said she, 'What I suffer
there is another, lovelier than I, suffering; thou the cause of it, O
cruel youth!'

He said, 'How, O damsel? what of my cruelty? Surely, I know nothing of
it.'

But she exclaimed, 'Ah, worse to feign forgetfulness!'

Now, he was bewildered at the words of the damsel, and followed her
leading till they entered a dell in the garden canopied with foliage, and
beyond it a green rise, and on the rise a throne. So he looked earnestly,
and beheld thereon Queen Rabesqurat, she sobbing, her dark hair pouring
in streams from the crown of her head. Seeing him, she cleared her eyes,
and advanced to meet him timidly and with hesitating steps; but he shrank
from her, and the Queen shrieked with grief, crying, 'Is there in this
cold heart no relenting?'

Then she said to him winningly, and in a low voice, 'O youth, my husband,
to whom I am a bride!'

He marvelled, saying, 'This is a game, for indeed I am no husband,
neither have I a bride . . . yet have I confused memory of some betrothal
. . .'

Thereupon she cried, 'Said I not so? and I the betrothed.'

Still he exclaimed, 'I cannot think it