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Then she wept and the old woman with her and the latter went up to Aboulhusn and uncovering his face, saw his eyes bound and swollen for the binding. So she covered him again and said, “Indeed, O Nuzhet el Fuad, thou art afflicted in Aboulhusn!” Then she condoled with her and going out from her, ran without ceasing till she came in to the Lady Zubeideh and related to her the story; and the princess said to her, laughing, “Tell it over again to the Khalif, who maketh me out scant of wit and lacking of religion, and to this ill-omened slave, who presumeth to contradict me.” Quoth Mesrour, “This old woman lieth; for I saw Aboulhusn well and Nuzhet el Fuad it was who lay dead.” “It is thou that liest,” rejoined the stewardess, “and wouldst fain sow discord between the Khalif and the Lady Zubeideh.” And he said, “None lieth but thou, O old woman of ill-omen, and thy lady believeth thee, and she doteth.” Whereupon the Lady Zubeideh cried out at him, and indeed she was enraged at him and at his speech and wept.

Then said the Khalif to her, “I lie and my eunuch lieth, and thou liest and thy waiting-woman lieth; so methinks we were best go, all four of us together, that we may see which of us telleth the truth.” Quoth Mesrour, “Come, let us go, that I may put this ill-omened old woman to shame[37] and deal her a sound drubbing for her lying.” And she answered him, saying, “O dotard, is thy wit like unto my wit? Indeed, thy wit is as the hen’s wit.” Mesrour was incensed at her words and would have laid violent hands on her, but the Lady Zubeideh warded him off from her and said to him, “Her sooth-fastness will presently be distinguished from thy sooth-fastness and her leasing from thy leasing.”

[Footnote 37] Lit. that I may do upon her sinister deeds.

Then they all four arose, laying wagers with one another, and went forth, walking, from the palace-gate [and fared on] till they came in at the gate of the street in which Aboulhusn el Khelia dwelt. He saw them and said to his wife Nuzhet el Fuad, “Verily, all that is sticky is not a pancake and not every time cometh the jar off safe.[38]’ Meseemeth the old woman hath gone and told her lady and acquainted her with our case and she hath disputed with Mesrour the eunuch and they have laid wagers with one another about our death and are come to us, all four, the Khalif and the eunuch and the Lady Zubeideh and the old woman.” When Nuzhet el Fuad heard this, she started up from her lying posture and said, “How shall we do?” And he said, “We will both feign ourselves dead and stretch ourselves out and hold our breath.” So she hearkened unto him and they both lay down on the siesta[-carpet] and bound their feet and shut their eyes and covered themselves with the veil and held their breath.

[Footnote 38] “The pitcher comes not always back unbroken from the well.”–English proverb.

Presently, up came the Khalif and the Lady Zubeideh and Mesrour and the old woman and entering, found Aboulhusn and his wife both stretched out [apparently] dead; which when the Lady Zubeideh saw, she wept and said, “They ceased not to bring [ill] news of my slave- girl, till she died; methinketh Aboulhusn’s death was grievous to her and that she died after him.”[39]. Quoth the Khalif, “Thou shalt not forestall me with talk and prate. She certainly died before Aboulhusn, for he came to me with his clothes torn and his beard plucked out, beating his breast with two bricks, and I gave him a hundred dinars and a piece of silk and said to him, ‘Go, carry her forth [and bury her] and I will give thee a concubine other than she and handsomer, and she shall be in stead of her.’ But it would appear that her death was no light matter to him and he died after her;[40] so it is I who have beaten thee and gotten thy stake.”