her; avenge her therefore upon me.-O my son, said the sheykh, thou art young, and wilt find pleasure in the world; and I am old, and satiated with the world: I will be a ransom for thee and for the Wezir and his kinsmen; and no one killed the damsel but myself: by Allah, therefore, hasten to retaliate upon me.

On witnessing this scene, the Wezir was astonished; and he took the young man and the sheykh to the Khalifeh, and said, O Prince of the Faithful, the murderer of the damsel hath come. Where is he? said the Khalifeh. This young man, answered Ja'far, saith, I am the murderer;-and this sheykh accuseth him of falsehood, and saith, Nay, but I am the murderer. The Khalifeh, looking towards the sheykh and the young man, said, Which of you killed this damsel? The young man answered, No one killed her but myself :and the sheykh said also, No one killed her but myself. The Khalifeh therefore said to Ja'far, Take them both and crucify them. If the murderer be one, replied Ja'far, to kill the other would be unjust. The young man then said, By Him who raised the heavens and spread out the earth, it was I who killed the damsel:—and he gave an account of the manner of his killing her, and described what the Khalifeh had found. The Khalifeh therefore was convinced that the young man was he who had killed the damsel; and he was astonished, and said, What was the cause of thy killing this damsel unjustly, and of thy confessing the murder without being beaten, and thy saying, Retaliate her death upon me? The young man answered as follows:

Know, O Prince of the Faithful, that this damsel was my wife, and the daughter of my uncle: this sheykh was her father, and is my uncle. I married her when she was a virgin, and God blessed me with three male children by her; and she loved me and served me, and I saw in her no evil. At the commencement of this month she was attacked by a severe illness, and I brought to her the physicians, who attended her until her health returned to her; and I desired them to send her to the bath; but she said to me, I want something before I enter the bath, for I have a longing for it.—What is it? said I. She answered, I have a longing for an apple, to smell it, and take a bite from it. So I went

out immediately into the city, and searched for the apple, and would have bought it had its price been a piece of gold: but I could not find one. I passed the next night full of thought, and when the morning came I quitted my house again and went about to all the gardens, one after another; yet I found none in them. There met me, however, an old gardener, of whom I inquired for the apple, and he said to me, O my son, this is a rare thing, and not to be found here, nor anywhere except in the garden of the Prince of the Faithful at El-Basrah, and preserved there for the Khalifeh. I returned therefore to my wife, and my love for her so constrained me that I prepared myself and journeyed fifteen days, by night and day, in going and returning, and brought her three apples which I purchased of the gardener at El-Basrah for three pieces of gold; and, going in, I handed them to her; but she was not pleased by them, and left them by her side. She was then suffering from a violent fever, and she continued ill during a period of ten days.

After this she recovered her health, and I went out and repaired to my shop, and sat there to sell and buy; and while I was thus occupied, at mid-day there passed by me a black slave, having in his hand an apple, with which he was playing so I said to him, Whence didst thou get this apple, for I would procure one like it?-Upon which he laughed, and answered, I got it from my sweetheart: I had been absent, and came, and found her ill, and she had three apples; and she said to me, My unsuspecting husband journeyed to El-Basrah for them, and bought them for three pieces of gold-and I took this apple from her. When I heard the words of the slave, O Prince of the Faithful, the world became black before my face, and I shut up my shop, and returned to my house, deprived of my reason by excessive rage. I found not the third apple, and said to her, Where is the apple? She answered, I know not whither it is gone. I was convinced thus that the slave had spoken the truth, and I arose, and took a knife, and, throwing myself upon her bosom, plunged the knife into her: I then cut off her head and limbs, and put them in the basket in haste, and covered them with the izar, over which I laid a piece of carpet then I put the basket in the chest, and, having

locked this, conveyed it on my mule, and threw it with my own hands into the Tigris.

And now, continued the young man, I conjure thee by Allah, O Prince of the Faithful, to hasten my death in retaliation for her murder, as I dread, otherwise, her appeal for vengeance upon me on the day of resurrection: for when I had thrown her into the Tigris without the knowledge of any one, I returned to my house, and found my eldest boy crying, though he knew not what I had done to his mother: so I said to him, What maketh thee cry?—and he answered, I took one of the apples that my mother had, and went down with it into the street to play with my brothers, and a tall black slave snatched it from me, and said to me, Whence came this to thee? I answered him, My father made a journey for it, and brought it from El-Basrah, for the sake of my mother; for she is sick: he bought three apples for three pieces of gold :—but he took it from me and beat me, and went away with it; and I am afraid that my mother may beat me on account of the apple.-When I heard my son's story, I discovered that the slave had forged a lie against the daughter of my uncle, and found that she had been killed unjustly; and as I was weeping bitterly for what I had done, this sheykh, my uncle and her father, came to me, and I informed him of the event; and he seated himself by me, and wept. We wept until midnight, and continued our mourning for her five days, ceasing not to the present day to bewail her death. By the honour of thine ancestors, therefore, hasten my death, to retaliate her murder upon me.

The Khalifeh wondered at the young man's story, and said, By Allah, I will not put to death any but the wicked slave; for the young man is excusable. Then looking towards Ja'far, he said to him, Bring before me this wicked slave who hath been the cause of the catastrophe; or, if thou bring him not, thou shalt be put to death in his stead. So the Wezir departed weeping, and saying, Whence shall I bring him? Not every time that the jar is struck doth it escape being broken! I have no stratagem to employ in this affair: but He who delivered me in the first case may deliver me in the second. By Allah, I will not go out from my house for three days; and the Truth, whose

perfection be extolled, will do what He willeth!-So he remained in his house three days, and on the fourth day he caused the Kadi to be brought, and made his testamentary arrangements; and as he was bidding farewell to his children, and weeping, lo, the messenger of the Khalifeh came and said to him, The Prince of the Faithful is in a most violent rage, and hath sent me to thee; and he hath sworn that this day shall not pass until thou art put to death if thou do not bring to him the slave.

On hearing this, Ja'far wept, and his children wept with him; and when he had bidden them all farewell except his youngest daughter, he approached her for the same purpose. He loved her more than all his other children; and he pressed her to his bosom, and wept at the thought of his separation from her; but, in doing this, he felt something round in her pocket, and said to her, What is in thy pocket? She answered, O my father, it is an apple; our slave Reyhan brought it, and I have had it four days: he would not give it me until he had received from me two pieces of gold.At this mention of the slave and the apple, Ja'far rejoiced, and exclaimed, O ready Dispeller of trouble!—and immediately he ordered that the slave should be brought before him. He was therefore brought in, and he said to him, Whence came this apple?-O my master, he answered, I went out five days ago, and, entering one of the by-streets of the city, I saw some children playing, and one of them had this apple; and I snatched it from him, and beat him; and he cried, and said, That belongs to my mother, and she is sick she wanted my father to bring her an apple, and he made a journey to El-Basrah, and brought back for her three apples which he bought for three pieces of gold; and I took this to play with it :-then he cried again; but, paying no regard to him, I took it away and brought it hither; and my little mistress bought it of me for two pieces of gold. When he heard this story, Ja'far was filled with wonder at discovering that this distressing event, and the murder of the damsel, had been occasioned by his slave; and he took the slave and went with him to the Khalifeh, who ordered that the story should be committed to writing, and published.

Ja'far then said to him, Wonder not, O Prince of the Faithful, at his tale, for it is not more extraordinary than the story of the Wezir Nur-ed-Din, and Shems-ed-Din, his brother. What story, said the Khalifeh, can be more wonderful than this?-O Prince of the Faithful, replied Ja'far, I will not relate it to thee unless on the condition that thou exempt my slave from the punishment of death. The Khalifeh said, I give thee his blood:-and Ja'far, thereupon, commenced the relation of the story as follows:

THE STORY OF NUR-ED-DIN AND HIS SON, AND OF SHEMS-ED-DIN AND HIS DAUGHTER

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Know, O Prince of the Faithful, that there was, in Cairo, a Sultan, just and beneficent, who had a wise and well-informed Wezir, possessing a knowledge of the affairs of the world, and of the art of government. This minister was an aged man, and he had two sons, like two moons: the name of the elder was Shems-ed-Din, and that of the younger, Nur-ed-Din; and the latter was more distinguished than the former by handsomeness and comeliness: there was no one in his day more handsome, so that the fame of his charms spread through the neighbouring regions, and some of the inhabitants of those parts travelled to his country merely to obtain a sight of him. And it came to pass that their father died, and the Sultan mourned for him, and, turning his regards towards the two sons, took them into his favour, invested them with robes of honour, and said to them, Ye two are instated in your father's office :at which they rejoiced, and kissed the ground before him. They observed the ceremonies of mourning for their father during a period of a whole month, and entered upon the office of Wezirs, each of them discharging the duties of this station for a week at a time; and whenever the Sultan had a desire to go forth on a journey, he took one of them with him.

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Now it happened, one night, that the Sultan purposed commencing a journey on the following morning; and it