Then the Princess,
who was unique in eloquence and delicacy of speech, fell to making a
cup companion of him and beguiled him by addressing him in the
sweetest terms of hidden meaning. This was done only that he might
become more madly enamored of her, but the Maghrabi thought that it
resulted from her true inclination for him, nor knew that it was a
snare set up to slay him. So his longing for her increased, and he was
dying of love for when he saw her address him in such tenderness of
words and thoughts, and his head began to swim and an the world seemed
as nothing in his eyes. But when they came to the last of the supper
and the wine had mastered his brains and the Princess saw this in him,
she said: "With us there be a custom throughout our country, but I
know not an it be the usage of yours or not." The Moorman replied,
"And what may that be?" So she said to him: "At the end of supper each
lover in turn taketh the cup of the beloved and drinketh it off."
And at once she crowned one with wine and bade the handmaid carry to
him her cup, wherein the drink was blended with the bhang.
Now she had taught the slave girl what to do, and all the
handmaids and eunuchs in the pavilion longed for the sorcerer's
slaughter and in that matter were one with the Princess.
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