neighbours came in to her and asked her of her son, and she told
them what had befallen him with the Persian, assured that she
should never, never see him again. Then she went round about the
house, weeping, and wending she espied two lines written upon the
wall; so she sent for a scholar, who read them to her; and they
were these,

"Leyla's phantom came by night, when drowsiness had overcome me,
towards morning while my companions were sleeping in the
desert,
But when we awoke to behold the nightly phantom, I saw the air
vacant and the place of visitation was distant."[FN#23]

When Hasan's mother heard these lines, she shrieked and said,
"Yes, O my son! Indeed, the house is desolate and the
visitation-place is distant!" Then the neighbours took leave of
her and after they had prayed that she might be vouchsafed
patience and speedy reunion with her son, went away; but she
ceased not to weep all watches of the night and tides of the day
and she built amiddlemost the house a tomb whereon she let write
Hasan's name and the date of his loss, and thenceforward she
quitted it not, but made a habit of incessantly biding thereby
night and day. Such was her case; but touching her son Hasan and
the Ajami, this Persian was a Magian, who hated Moslems with
exceeding hatred and destroyed all who fell into his power. He
was a lewd and filthy villain, a hankerer after alchemy, an
astrologer and a hunter of hidden hoards, such an one as he of
whom quoth the poet,

"A dog, dog-fathered, by dog-grandsire bred; * No good in dog