A while after, the King said to his mother, 'I have a mind to
take a wife; so do thou marry me to a fair woman.' Quoth she,
'There is among our female slaves one who is unsurpassed in
beauty; but she hath a grievous blemish.' 'What is that?' asked
the King; and his mother answered, 'She hath had both her hands
cut off.' Said he, 'Let me see her.' So she brought her to him,
and he was ravished by her and married her and went in to her;
and she brought him a son.
Now this was the woman, who had her hands cut off for
alms-giving; and when she became queen, her fellow-wives envied
her and wrote to the King [who was then absent] that she was
unchaste; so he wrote to his mother, bidding her carry the
woman into the desert and leave her there. The old queen obeyed
his commandment and abandoned the woman and her son in the
desert; whereupon she fell to weeping and wailing exceeding
sore for that which had befallen her. As she went along, with
the child at her neck, she came to a river and knelt down to
drink, being overcome with excess of thirst, for fatigue and
grief; but, as she bent her head, the child fell into the
water.
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