The Three Hundred and Thirty-ninth Night,

Dunyazad said to her, "Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be
other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short
the watching of this our latter night!" She replied, "With love
and good will!" It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the
director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting
and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the Sultan
fell upon the Sharper with his sword purposing to slay him; but
the Chamberlains and the Eunuchs prevented him saying, "O our
lord, kill him not until his falsehood or his fact shall have
been made manifest to thee."The Sultan said to him, "What then
appeared to thee in my Queen?" "He[FN#37] is ferly fair," said
the man, "but his mother is a dancing-girl, a gypsey."[FN#38] The
fury of the King increased hereat and he sent to summon the
inmates of his Harem and cried to his father-in-law, "Unless thou
speak me sooth concerning thy daughter and her descent and her
mother I"--[FN#39] He replied, "By Allah, O King of the Age,
naught saveth a man save soothfastness! Her mother indeed was a
Ghaziyah: in past time a party of the tribe was passing by my
abode when a young maid strayed from her fellows and was lost.
They asked no questions concerning her; so I lodged her and bred
her in my homestead till she grew up to be a great girl and the
fairest of her time. My heart would not brook her wiving with any
other; so I wedded her and she bare me this daughter whom thou, O
King, hast espoused." When the Sultan heard these words the flame
in his heart was quenched[FN#40] and he wondered at the subtlety
of the Sharper man; so he summoned him and asked him saying, "O
wily one, tell me what certified to thee that my Queen had a