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"I see their traces and with pain I melt, * And on their whilome

homes I weep and yearn: And Him I pray who dealt this

parting-blow * Some day he deign vouchsafe a safe return."

[FN#443]

When he ceased versifying, he read the scroll and found in it

recorded the dates of his brother's marriage with the daughter of

the Wazir of Bassorah, and of his going in to her, and her

conception, and the birth of Badr al-Din Hasan and all his

brother's history and doings up to his dying day. So he marvelled

much and shook with joy and, comparing the dates with his own

marriage and going in to his wife and the birth of their

daughter, Sitt al-Husn, he found that they perfectly agreed. So

he took the document and, repairing with it to the Sultan,

acquainted him with what had passed, from first to last; whereat

the King marvelled and commanded the case to be at once recorded.

[FN#444] The Wazir abode that day expecting to see his brother's

son but he came not; and he waited a second day, a third day and

so on to the seventh day, without any tidings of him.