the light of lamps hung profusely from branches and twigs of trees by the
glowing cheeks of fruits, apple and grape, pomegranate and quince; and he
was reclining on a bank piled with purple cushions, his limbs clad in the
richest figured silks, fringed like the ends of clouds round the sun,
with amber fringes. He started up, striving to recall the confused
memory of his adventures and what evil had befallen him, and he would
have struggled with the vision of these glories, but it mastered him with
the strength of a potent drug, so that the very name of his betrothed was
forgotten by him, and he knew not whither he would, or the thing he
wished for. Now, when he had risen from the soft green bank that was his
couch, lo, at his feet a damsel weeping! So he lifted her by the hand,
and she arose and looked at him, and began plaining of love and its
tyrannies, softening him, already softened. Then said she, 'What I
suffer there is another, lovelier than I, suffering; thou the cause
of it, O cruel youth!'

He said, 'How, O damsel? what of my cruelty? Surely, I know nothing
of it.'

But she exclaimed, 'Ah, worse to feign forgetfulness!'

Now, he was bewildered at the words of the damsel, and followed her
leading till they entered a dell in the garden canopied with foliage,
and beyond it a green rise, and on the rise a throne. So he looked
earnestly, and beheld thereon Queen Rabesqurat, she sobbing, her dark
hair pouring in streams from the crown of her head. Seeing him, she
cleared her eyes, and advanced to meet him timidly and with hesitating
steps; but he shrank from her, and the Queen shrieked with grief, crying,
'Is there in this cold heart no relenting?'