refusal of herself to him, he feared lest she should tell the
folk of him. So, when he arose in the morning, he took a scroll
and wrote in it what he would of forgery and falsehood and going
up to the Sultan's palace, said, '[I have] an advisement [for the
king].' So he bade admit him and he delivered him the writ that
he had forged, saying, 'I found this letter with the woman, the
devotee, the ascetic, and indeed she is a spy, a secret informer
against the king to his enemy; and I deem the king's due more
incumbent on me than any other and his advisement the first
[duty], for that he uniteth in himself all the people, and but
for the king's presence, the subjects would perish; wherefore I
have brought [thee] warning.' The king put faith in his words and
sent with him those who should lay hands upon the woman and put
her to death; but they found her not.

As for the woman, whenas the man went out from her, she resolved
to depart; so she went forth, saying in herself, 'There is no
journeying for me in woman's attire.' Then she donned men's
apparel, such as is worn of the pious, and set out and wandered
over the earth; nor did she leave going till she entered a
certain city. Now the king of that city had an only daughter in
whom he gloried and whom he loved, and she saw the devotee and
deeming her a pilgrim youth, said to her father, 'I would fain
have this youth take up his abode with me, so I may learn of him
wisdom and renunciation and religion.' Her father rejoiced in
this and commanded the [supposed] pilgrim to take up his sojourn
with his daughter in his palace. Now they were in one place and
the king's daughter was strenuous to the utterest in continence
and chastity and nobility of mind and magnanimity and devotion to
the worship of God; but the ignorant slandered her[FN#5] and the