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She told my father how she longed for an apple, so he travelled

to Bassorah and bought her three apples for three gold pieces,

and I took one of them to play withal.' He wept again, but I paid

no heed to what he said and carried it off and brought it here,

and my little lady bought it of me for two dinars of gold. And

this is the whole story." When Ja'afar heard his words he

marvelled that the murder of the damsel and all this misery

should have been caused by his slave; he grieved for the relation

of the slave to himself, while rejoicing over his own

deliverance, and he repeated these lines: -

"If ill betide thee through thy slave, * Make him forthright thy

sacrifice: A many serviles thou shalt find, * But life comes once

and never twice."