During the season of the Meccan pilgrimage, whilst the people were making circuit about the Holy House and the place of compassing was crowded, behold, a man laid hold of the covering of the Ka'abah and cried out, from the bottom of his heart, saying, 'I beseech you, O Allah, that she may once again be wroth with her husband and that I may know her!' A company of the pilgrims heard him and seized him and carried him to the Emir of the pilgrims, after a sufficiency of blows; and, They said, 'O Emir, we found this fellow in the Holy Places, saying thus and thus.' So the Emir commanded to hang him; but he cried, 'O Emir, I conjure you, by the virtue of the Apostle (whom Allah bless and preserve!), hear my story and then do with me as you will.' the Emir said, 'Tell your tale directly.' 'Know then, O Emir,' the man said, 'that I am a sweep who works in the sheep slaughterhouses and carries off the blood and the offal to the rubbish heaps outside the gates. And it came to pass as I went along one day with my ass loaded, I saw the people running away and one of them said to me, 'Enter this alley, lest Perhaps they slay you.' I said, 'What ails the folk running away?' and one of the eunuchs, who were passing, said to me, 'This is the Harim of one of the notables and her eunuchs drive the people out of her way and beat them all, without respect to persons.' So I turned aside with the donkey' "—

When it was the Two Hundred and Eighty third night

When it was the Two Hundred and Eighty fourth night

The Sweep and the Noble Lady 129

When it was the Two Hundred and Eighty fifth night

And men also tell the tale of