While the jeweller was conversing with the prince of Persia, the confident had time to return to the palace, and tell her mistress the ill news of Ebn Thaher’s departure.  Schemselniliar immediately wrote this letter, and sent back her confident with it to the prince of Persia; but she negligently dropped it.

The jeweller was glad to find it; for it was a good way to set him right with the confident, and bring him to the point he desired.  When he had read it, he perceived the slave, who sought it with a great deal of uneasiness, looking about every where.  He closed it again quickly, and put it into his bosom; but the slave took notice of it, and ran to him.  Sir, said she, I have dropped a letter which you had just now in your hand; I beseech you be pleased to restore it.  The jeweller, taking no notice that he heard her, continued his way till he came to his house.  He did not shut the door behind him, that the confident, who followed him, might come in.  She accordingly did so; and when she came to his chamber, Sir, said she to him, you can make no use of the letter you have found; and you would make no difficulty in returning it to me, if you knew from whom it came, and to whom it is directed.  Besides, let me tell you, you cannot honestly keep it.

Before the jeweller answered the confident, he made her sit down, and said to her, Is not this letter from Schemselnihar, and directed to the prince of Persia?  The slave, who expected no such question, blushed.  The question puzzles you, replied he, but I assure you I do not propose it rashly:  I could have given you the letter in the street, but I suffered you to follow me, on purpose that I might discourse with you.  Tell me, is it just to impute an unhappy accident to people who no ways contributed towards it?  Yet this you have done, in telling the prince of Persia that it was I who counselled Ebn Thaher to leave Bagdad for his own safety.  I do not intend to lose time in justifying myself to you; it is enough that the prince of Persia is fully persuaded of my innocence in this matter:  I will only tell you, that instead of contributing to Ebn Thaher’s departure, I have been extremely afflicted at it; not so much for my friendship to him, as out of compassion for the condition in which he left the prince of Persia, whose correspondence with Schemselnihar he has acknowledged to me.  As soon as I knew certainly that Ebn Thaher was gone from Bagdad, I presented myself to the prince, in whose house you found me, to inform him of this news, and to offer him the same service which he did him; and, provided you put the same confidence in me that you did in Ebn Thaher, you may serve yourself by my assistance.  Inform your mistress of what I have told you, and assure her, that if I should die for engaging in so dangerous an intrigue, I will rejoice to have sacrificed myself for two lovers so worthy of each other.