weeping till he swooned away and, when he recovered, he rose and walked about the garden, pondering what Time had done with him and bewailing the long endurance of his estrangement and separation from those he loved.  As he was thus absorbed in melancholy thought, his foot stumbled and he fell on his face, his forehead striking against the projecting root of a tree; and the blow cut it open and his blood ran down and mingled with his tears Then he rose and, wiping away the blood, dried his tears and bound his brow with a piece of rag; then continued his walk about the garden engrossed by sad reverie.  Presently, he looked up at a tree and saw two birds quarrelling thereon, and one of them rose up and smote the other with its beak on the neck and severed from its body its head, wherewith it flew away, whilst the slain bird fell to the ground before Kamar al-Zaman.  As it lay, behold, two great birds swooped down upon it alighting, one at the head and the other at the tail, and both drooped their wings and bowed their bills over it and, extending their necks towards it, wept.  Kamar al-Zaman also wept when seeing the birds thus bewail their mate, and called to mind his wife and father, And Shahrazed perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

       When it was the Two Hundred and Thirteenth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Kamar al-Zaman wept and lamented his separation from spouse and sire, when he beheld those two birds weeping over their mate.  Then he looked at the twain and saw them dig a grave and therein bury the slain bird; after which they flew away far into the firmament and disappeared for a while; but presently they returned with the murtherer-bird and, alighting on the grave of the murthered, stamped on the slayer till they had done him to death.  Then they rent his belly and tearing out his entrails, poured the blood on the grave of the slain[FN#328]:  moreover, they stripped off his skin and tare his flesh in pieces and, pulling out the rest of the bowels, scattered them hither and thither.  All this while Kamar al-Zaman was watching them wonderingly; but presently, chancing to look at the place where the two birds had slain the third, he saw therein something gleaming.  So he drew near to it and noted that it was the crop of the dead bird.  Whereupon he took it and opened it and found the talisman which had been the cause of his separation from his wife.  But when he saw it and knew it, he fell to the ground a-fainting for joy; and, when he revived, he said, “Praised be Allah!  This is a foretaste of good and a presage of reunion with my beloved.”  Then he examined the jewel and passed it over his eyes[FN#329]; after which he bound it to his forearm, rejoicing in coming weal, and walked about till nightfall awaiting the gardener’s return; and when he came not, he lay down and slept in his wonted place.  At daybreak he rose to his work and, girding his middle with a cord of palm-fibre, took hatchet and basket and walked down the length of the garden, till he came to a carob-tree and struck the axe into its roots.  The blow rang and resounded; so he cleared away the soil from the place and discovered a trap-door and raised it.—­And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.