صفحة 640 من 1116

Is it not enough that thou hast broken my shop and smashed my

gear and boxed me up in a chest and fed me only once a day?" "Too

little pepper! too little pepper!

this is a crime which can be expiated only upon the cross!" Then

Badr al-Din Hasan marvelled and fell a-mourning for his life;

whereupon the Wazir asked him, "Of what thinkest thou?"; and he

answered him, "Of maggoty heads like thine; [FN#479] for an thou

had one ounce of sense thou hadst not treated me thus." Quoth the

Wazir, "It is our duty to punish thee lest thou do the like

again." Quoth Badr al-Din Hasan, "Of a truth my offense were

over-punished by the least of what thou hast already done to me;

and Allah damn all conserve of pomegranate-grains and curse the

hour when I cooked it and would I had died ere this!" But the

Wazir rejoined, "There is no help for it; I must crucify a man

who sells conserve of pomegranate-grains lacking pepper." All

this time the carpenter was shaping the wood and Badr al-Din

looked on; and thus they did till night, when his uncle took him

and clapped him into the chest, saying, "The thing shall be done

to-morrow!" Then he waited until he knew Badr al-Din "Hasan to be

asleep, when he mounted; and taking the chest up before him,

entered the city and rode on to his own house, where he alighted

and said to his daughter, Sitt al-Husn, "Praised be Allah who

hath reunited thee with thy husband, the son of thine uncle!