not, they perish; and I fear lest some mishap betide her, in which case thou wouldst not be safe from the Khalifs wrath.”  “What is to be done?” asked the Sheikh; and the Jew replied, “I have old wine that will suit her.”  Quoth the old man, “[I conjure thee] by the right of neighbourship, deliver me from this calamity and let me have that which is with thee!” “In the name of God,” answered the Jew and going to his house, brought out a flagon of wine, with which the Sheikh returned to Sitt el Milah.  This pleased her and she said to him, “Whence hadst thou this?” “I got it from my neighbour the Jew,” answered he.  “I set out to him my case with thee and he gave me this.”

Sitt el Milah filled a cup and emptied it; after which she drank a second and a third.  Then she filled the cup a fourth time and handed it to the old man, but he would not accept it from her.  However, she conjured him, by her own head and that of the Commander of the Faithful, that he should take it from her, till he took the cup from her hand and kissed it and would have set it down; but she conjured him by her life to smell it.  So he smelt it and she said to him, “How deemest thou?” “Its smell is sweet,” replied he; and she conjured him, by the life of the Commander of the Faithful, to taste it.  So he put it to his mouth and she rose to him and made him drink; whereupon, “O princess of the fair,” said he, “this is none other than good.”  Quoth she, “So deem I. Hath not our Lord promised us wine in Paradise?” And he answered, “Yes.  Quoth the Most High, ’And rivers of wine, a delight to the drinkers.’[FN#36] And we will drink it in this world and the world to come.”  She laughed and emptying the cup, gave him to drink, and he said, “O princess of the fair, indeed thou art excusable in thy love for this.”  Then he took from her another and another, till he became drunken and his talk waxed great and his prate.

The folk of the quarter heard him and assembled under the window; and when he was ware of them, he opened the window and said to them, “Are ye not ashamed, O pimps?  Every one in his own house doth what he will and none hindereth him; but we drink one poor day and ye assemble and come, cuckoldy varlets that ye are!  To-day, wine, and to-morrow [another] matter; and from hour to hour [cometh] relief.”  So they laughed and dispersed.  Then the girl drank till she was intoxicated, when she called to mind her lord and wept, and the old man said to her, “What maketh thee weep, O my lady?” “O elder,” replied she, “I am a lover and separated [from him I love].”  Quoth he, “O my lady, what is this love?” “And thou,” asked she, “hast thou never been in love?” “By Allah, O my lady,” answered he, “never in all my life heard I of this thing, nor have I ever known it!  Is it of the sons of Adam or of the Jinn?” She laughed and said, “Verily, thou art even as those of whom the poet speaketh, when as he saith ...”  And she repeated the following verses: