me 'If my Father force me to wed him, whomsoever I wed I will
slay.' Then said her sire to the Wazir and Aziz, "Ye have heard,
and now ye know all! So let your King wot of it and give him my
salutations and say that my daughter misliketh men and disliketh
marriage."--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to
say her permitted say.

When it was the One Hundred and Thirty-first Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that King
Shahriman thus addressed the Wazir and Aziz, "Salute your King
from me and inform him of what ye have heard, namely that my
daughter misliketh marriage." So they turned away unsuccessful
and ceased not faring on till they rejoined the King and told him
what had passed; whereupon he commanded the chief officers to
summon the troops and get them ready for marching and
campaigning. But the Wazir said to him, "O my liege Lord, do not
thus: the King is not at fault because, when his daughter learnt
our business, she sent a message saying, 'If my father force me
to wed, whomsoever I wed I will slay and myself after him.' So
the refusal cometh from her." When the King heard his Minister's
words he feared for Taj al-Muluk and said, "Verily if I make war
on the King of the Camphor Islands and carry off his daughter,
she will kill herself and it will avail me naught." Then he told
his son how the case stood, who hearing it said, "O my father, I
cannot live without her; so I will go to her and contrive to get
at her, even though I die in the attempt, and this only will I do
and nothing else." Asked his father, "How wilt thou go to her?"
and he answered, "I will go in the guise of a merchant."[FN#11]
Then said the King, "If thou need must go and there is no help