"
"A boughten slave?" asked I; but, "Nay, so heaven forfend!"
quoth it. "From ancestor to ancestor he did inherit me."
MOHAMMED EL AMIN AND JAAFER BEN EL HADI.
Jaafer ben Mousa el Hadi[FN#119] once had a slave-girl, a lute
player, called El Bedr el Kebir, than whom there was not in her
time a fairer of face nor a better-shaped nor a more elegant of
manners nor a more accomplished in singing and smiting the
strings; she was indeed perfect in beauty and charm. Mohammed
el Amin,[FN#120] son of Zubeideh, heard of her and was instant
with Jaafer to sell her to him; but he replied, 'Thou knowest
it beseems not one of my rank to sell slave-girls nor traffic
in concubines; but, were it not that she was reared in my
house, I would send her to thee, as a gift, nor grudge her to
thee.'
Some days after this, El Amin went to Jaafer's house, to make
merry; and the latter set before him that which it behoves to
set before friends and bade El Bedr sing to him and gladden
him. So she tuned the lute and sang right ravishingly, whilst El
Amin fell to drinking and making merry and bade the cupbearers
ply Jaafer with wine, till he became drunken, when he took the
damsel and carried her to his own house, but laid not a finger
on her.
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