last he came to her father's city of Sana'a and there asked for
her, but could get no tidings of her and found her father
mourning her loss. So he turned back and made for the land of the
Greeks, continuing to enquire concerning the twain as he went,--
And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her
permitted say.

When it was the Three Hundred and Sixty-eighth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the King's
son made for the land of the Greeks, continuing to enquire
concerning the two as he went along, till, as chance would have
it, he alighted at a certain Khan and saw a company of merchants
sitting at talk. So he sat down near them and heard one say, "O
my friends, I lately witnessed a wonder of wonders." They asked,
"What was that?" and he answered, "I was visiting such a district
in such a city (naming the city wherein was the Princess), and I
heard its people chatting of a strange thing which had lately
befallen. It was that their King went out one day hunting and
coursing with a company of his courtiers and the lords of his
realm; and, issuing from the city, they came to a green meadow
where they espied an old man standing, with a woman sitting hard
by a horse of ebony. The man was foulest-foul of face and loathly
of form, but the woman was a marvel of beauty and loveliness and
elegance and perfect grace; and as for the wooden horse, it was a
miracle, never saw eyes aught goodlier than it nor more gracious
than its make." Asked the others, "And what did the King with
them?"; and the merchant answered, "As for the man the King
seized him and questioned him of the damsel and he pretended that
she was his wife and the daughter of his paternal uncle; but she