JULNAR THE SEA-BORN AND HER SON KING BADR BASIM OF PERSIA.
There was once in days of yore and in ages and times long gone before, in Ajam-land a King Shahrimán[FN#302] hight, whose abiding place was Khorásán. He owned an hundred concubines, but by none of them had he been blessed with boon of child, male or female, all the days of his life. One day, among the days, he bethought him of this and fell lamenting for that the most part of his existence was past and he had not been vouchsafed a son to inherit the kingdom after him, even as he had inherited it from his fathers and forebears; by reason whereof there betided him sore cark and care and chagrin exceeding. As he sat thus one of his Mamelukes came in to him and said, "O my lord, at the door is a slave girl with her merchant, and faire
