One day he thought he would go to her own palace and see if he
could learn anything there, so he went out to her garden-house.
It was a very splendid place, with a wonderful gateway, and walls
like Alexander's ramparts. Many gate-keepers were on guard, and
there was no chance of passing them. His heart was full of
bitterness, but he said to himself: 'All will be well! it is here
I shall get what I want.' He went round outside the garden wall
hoping to find a gap, and he made supplication in the Court of
Supplications and prayed, 'O Holder of the hand of the helpless!
show me my way.'

While he prayed he bethought himself that he could get into the
garden with a stream of inflowing water. He looked carefully
round, fearing to be seen, stripped, slid into the stream and was
carried within the great walls. There he hid himself till his
loin cloth was dry. The garden was a very Eden, with running
water amongst its lawns, with flowers and the lament of doves and
the jug-jug of nightingales. It was a place to steal the senses
from the brain, and he wandered about and saw the house, but
there seemed to be no one there. In the forecourt was a royal
seat of polished jasper, and in the middle of the platform was a
basin of purest water that flashed like a mirror. He pleased
himself with these sights for a while, and then went back to the
garden and hid himself from the gardeners and passed the night.
Next morning he put on the appearance of a madman and wandered
about till he came to a lawn where several pert-faced girls were
amusing themselves. On a throne, jewelled and overspread with
silken stuffs, sat a girl the splendour of whose beauty lighted
up the place, and whose ambergris and attar perfumed the whole
air. 'That must be Mihrafruz,' he thought, 'she is indeed