'Had I wept before she did in my passion for Saada, * I had healed my soul before repentance came. But she wept before I did: her tears drew mine; and I said, * The merit belongs to the precedent.'"
"And" (resumed Salih the Pious) "if we stood on our faces in thy service, O King of the Age, a thousand years, yet had we not the might to requite thee, and this were but a scantling of thy due." The King thanked him with heartiest thanks and the Merman and Merwomen abode with him forty days' space, at the end of which Salih arose and kissed the ground before his brother in law, who asked ' What wantest thou, O Salih?" He answered, "O King of the Age, indeed thou hast done us overabundant favours, and we crave of thy bounties that thou deal charitably with us and grant us permission to depart;
