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The governor hereupon lost his senses through fright, and did not recover until after the sun had risen.

Now, he could see nothing of a domed edifice, nor one single human being. He wandered about on a trackless plain for three days and three nights, hungry, thirsty, and footsore. At length he sank under his sufferings.

Meanwhile, the porter of the college had given intelligence of the governor’s pursuit after Jelāl. When his officers found that he did not return, they sent a numerous party of guards to seek him. These, on the second day, met Jelāl. He told them where they would find their master. The next day, late, they came up with him, found him to be nearly dead, and brought him home.

The governor became a sincere convert, and a disciple to Jelāl for ever after.

(A parallel tale is told of Jelāl’s fetching water from the Tigris for his father by night when he was a little child at Bagdad. There, too, all the gates opened to him of themselves.)

It is related that the Seyyid Burhānu-’d-Dīn was often heard to narrate that, when Jelāl was a child, the Seyyid was his governor and tutor. He had often taken Jelāl up on his shoulder, and so carried him to the empyrean. “But now,” he would add, “Jelāl has attained to such eminence of station that he carries me up.” These sayings of the Seyyid were repeated to Jelāl, who confirmed them with the remark: “It is quite true; and a hundredfold more also; the services rendered to me by that man are infinite.”