' Then he rode away, and
from that time to this we have heard nothing of him." Shemseddin
was concerned at his brother's absence and became exceedingly
uneasy, when he found that he did not return, and said to
himself, "This is because I spoke harshly to him that night, and
he has taken it to heart and gone away; but I must send after
him." Then he went in to the King and acquainted him with what
had happened, and he wrote letters and despatched couriers to his
deputies in every province; but after awhile they returned
without having been able to come at any news of Noureddin, who
had by this time reached Bassora. So Shemseddin despaired of
finding his brother and said, "Indeed, I went beyond all bounds
in what I said to him, with reference to the marriage of our
children. Would it had not been so! This all comes of my lack of
sense and judgment." Soon after this he sought in marriage the
daughter of a merchant of Cairo and took her to wife and went in
to her (as it happened by the will of God the Most High, that so
He might carry out what He had decreed to His creatures) on the
very night on which Noureddin went in to the Vizier's daughter of
Bassora. Moreover, it was as the two brothers had said; for their
wives conceived by them and were brought to bed on the same day,
the wife of Shemseddin of a daughter, never was seen in Cairo a
fairer than she, and the wife of Noureddin of a son, than whom a
handsomer was never seen in his time.
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