and we shall gain time to
finish our task."

They now vied with each other, one sewing while the other rested or
fetched water and bread for refreshment, but the night came, and still
their work was unfinished. Thus they went on for three days and four
nights, their hands bleeding and swollen, their eyes dim with working,
but their courage unabated. Their mutual feelings of friendship and
sympathy and their honest exertion enabled them to accomplish their
work. A secret presentiment told them it was for the happiness of
their future life that they had to restore the hard, rigid, and torn
apron.

When the fourth morning dawned, they put in the last stitch, and with
tears of joy, then embraced each other, exclaiming in rapture, while
they extended their hands towards heaven in gratitude: "It is
finished!" "It is finished!" they heard an harmonious voice repeating.
They raised their eyes, and behold, the damp, dark cavern where they
stood, was changed into a beautiful bright grotto. Before them stood
the lovely Peribanu, with her crown of stars and her emerald sceptre,
saying, with a friendly smile, "It is finished! Look what you have
joined again!" Hussain and Ibrahim looked at the apron they still
held, and behold! it was the splendid gold cloth which Ibrahim once in
anger had torn in the market-place, and with it Hussain's friendship.

"It had suffered great damage," said Peribanu, "and it has cost you
labour and trouble to sew it together again; but it is restored. The
threads of early friendship are again united, the flowers of childhood,
which were torn up by the roots, are again planted in the golden ground
of your life."

Ibrahim recognised in her beautiful features the kindly woman who had
once come to him in the hour of midnight, to beg the gold cloth as a
bridal dress for her daughter. "You must really give it me for a
bridal dress for my daughter," said Peribanu, "this very day I shall
celebrate her nuptials." Ibrahim gave it her. Peribanu waved her
sceptre, a curtain was raised, and Ibrahim and Hussain saw their
children crowned with flowers, kneeling at an altar before the sacred
image of the Moon.

"The beaming symbol of the prophet perpetually changes," said Peribanu,
"bringing joy and sorrow according to the law of eternal fate. On you
it has now bestowed happiness. The life of Ali and Gulhyndi will be
like a fine spring morning, and the old age of Ibrahim and Hussain a
glorious Septem