property of all the caitiffs and having distributed the booty
amongst the sailors, bade them weigh anchor and shake out their
canvas. On this wide they left that ruined city until they had
made the middle of the main and they fared for a number of days
athwart the billowy deep nor could they hit upon their course
amongst the courses of the sea until Destiny cast them beside a
city. They made fast to the anchorage-ground, and the damsel
arose and donning Mameluke's dress and arraying the Forty Virgins
in the same attire all walked together and paced about the shore
and they were like garden blooms. When they entered the streets
they found all the folk a-sorrowing, so they asked one of them
and he answered, "The Sultan who over-reigneth this city is dead
and the reign lacketh rule." Now in that stead and under the hand
of the Wazir, was a Bird which they let loose at certain times,
and whenever he skimmed round and perched upon the head of any
man to him they would give the Sultanate.[FN#26] By the decree of
the Decreer they cast the fowl high in air at the very hour when
the damsel was landing and he hovered above her and settled upon
her head (she being in slave's attire), and the city folk and the
lords of the land cried out, "Strange! passing strange!" So they
flushed the bird from the place where he had alighted and on the
next day they freed hum again at a time when the damsel had left
the ship, and once more he came and settled upon her head. They
drove him away, crying, "Oh rare! oh rare!" but as often as they
started him off her head he returned to it and alighted there
again. "Marvellous!" cried the Wazir, "but Allah Almighty hath
done this[FN#27] and none shall object to what He doeth nor shall
any reject what He decreeth." Accordingly, they gave her the
Sultanate together with the signet-ring of governance and the
turband of commandment and they seated her upon the throne of the