Pagina 660 van 1116

When the Caliph Harun al-Rashid heard this story from the mouth

of his Wazir, Ja'afar the Barmecide, he marvelled much and said,

"It behoves that these stories be written in letters of liquid

gold." Then he set the slave at liberty and assigned to the youth

who had slain his wife such a monthly stipend as sufficed to make

his life easy; he also gave him a concubine from amongst his own

slave-girls and the young man became one of his cup-companions.

"Yet this story," (continued Shahrazad) "is in no wise stranger

than the tale of the Tailor and the Hunchback and the Jew and the

Reeve and the Nazarene, and what betided them." Quoth the King,

"And what may that be?" So Shahrazad began, in these

words,[FN#495]

THE HUNCHBACK'S TALE.