truly, O King, my tale is a rare and it is even as follows:—I had a mother of whose flocks the World had left her but a single kid, and we owned never another. Presently, we determined to sell it; and, having so done, we bought with its price a young calf, which we brought up for a whole year till it grew fat and full sized. Then my mother said to me, "Take that calf and go sell it;" so I went forth with it to the Bazar, and I saw that not one was like it, when behold, a body of vagabonds, who numbered some forty, looked at the beast, and it pleased them; so they said one to other, "Let us carry this away and cut its throat and flay it." Then one of them, as all were standing afar off, came near me and said, "O youth, will you sell this kid?" and I said, "O my uncle, truly this is a calf and not a kid;" and the other rejoined, "Are you blind? This is a kid." Cried I, "A calf!" So he asked, "Will you take from me a dollar?" and I answered, "Nay, O my uncle!" Thereupon he went away from me, and another came after him and said, "O youth, will you
The First Larrikin. 221 sell this kid?" and i said, "This is a calf," and he said,"This is a kid," and reviled me the while I held my peace. Again he said, "Will you take for this a dollar?" but I was not satisfied therewith, and they did not stop to wrangle with me, one after other, each coming up and saying, "O youth, will you sell this kid?" At last their Shaykh accosted me and cried, "Will you sell it?" and I rejoined, "There is no Majesty save in Allah! I will sell it on one condition, to wit, that I take from you its tail." Replied to me the Shaykh of the Vagabonds, "You will take the tail when we have slaughtered it;" then, paying me a dollar, he led off the beast, and returned to his own folk. Presently, they killed it and flayed it, when I took the tail and hastened back to my mother. She said to me, "Have you sold the calf?" and i said, "Yes, I have sold it, and have taken a dollar and the calf's tail." "And what will you do for the tail?" she asked; and I answered, "I will do him brown who took it from me saying, This is a kid, and I will serve him a sleight which shall get out of him to its price ten times one hundred."
With these words I arose and, taking the tail, I flayed it and studded it with nails and bits of glass, and I asked of my mother a maiden's dress, which she brought me; and presently I covered my face with a Burka' veil, and I adorned me and perfumed myself and I girded my loins underneath my clothes with the tail of that calf. Then I went forth like a virgin girl till I reached the barrack of those blackguards, when I found that they had cooked the whole calf and nothing of it remained undressed, and they had prepared to spread the table and were about sitting down to supper. Then I went in to them and said, "The Peace be upon you," and they rose to me in a body of their joy, and returned my greetings and said, "By God, our night is a white one." So I entered to them and supped with them, and they all inclined to me, and their mustachios wagged in token that they would disport with me. But when darkness came on they said, "This night is for our Shaykh, but after this each one of us shall take her for his own night."
Then her sister Dunyazad said, "How sweet is your story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!" She said, "And where is this compared with what I should relate to you on the coming night if the King permits me to survive?"
Now when it was the next night and that was
The Four Hundred and Forty first Night
Dunyazad said to her, "In God's name, O my sister, If you be other than sleepy, finish for us your tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!" She replied, "With love and good will!" It has reached me,the director, the right guiding, lord of the counsel which is benefiting and of deeds fair seeming and worthy celebrating, that the vagabonds said, "Each one of us shall take her to him for a night after the Shaykh," and so saying they left me and went their ways. Then the Chief fell to chatting with me and he was in high spirits, when suddenly my glance fell upon a rope hanging from the ceiling of that barrack and I cried, "O Shaykh!" Whereto he replied, "Yes, O my lady and light of my eyes." I said to him, "What may be this cord thus suspended?" and he said, "This is called, 'hanging gear'; and, when any of ours requires chastisement from my associates, we hoist him up by this rope and we bash him." I said, "Hang me up and let me see how 'tis done," but he said, "Heaven forfend, O my lady! I will hang myself in your stead and you will look upon me." at this he arose and tied himself tight and cried, "Haul up this rope and make it fast in such a place!" I did his bidding and bound it right firmly and left him hanging in the air. Presently, he cried, "Let go the cord," and replied I, "O Shaykh, first let me enjoy the spectacle." Then I stripped him of all his clothing and drawing forth the calf's tail which was studded with nails and glass splinters, I said to him, "O Shaykh, is this the tail of a kid or of a calf?"
The First Larrikin. 223
"What woman are you?" he asked, and I answered, "I am the owner of the calf;" and then, tucking up my two sleeves to the elbows, I beat him till I stripped him of his skin and he lost his senses and he had no breath wherewith to speak. Thereupon I arose and fell to searching the hall, where I found sundry valuables amongst which was a box, so I opened it and came upon three hundred gold pieces and a store of reals and silverlings and jadids. I laid hands on the whole of it and then bore off something of the most sumptuous dresses; and, having wrapped them all up in a sheet, I carried them away; and about dawn I went in to my mother and cried, "Take these to the price of the calf, which I have received from the purchaser." But when the day was high and the sun grew hot the whole troop of the Shaykh collected and said, "truly our Elder has slept till the undurn hour;" and one of them declared, " 'Tis from enjoying so much pleasure and luxury, he and the girl; and doubtless their night has been a white night."
So they did not stop talking together and each of them had his word until the noon was high, when certain of them said, "Come with us and let us rouse him from sleep:" and, saying thus, all went to the door of the hall and opened it. Hereupon they found their Shaykh hanging up and his body bleeding profusely; so they asked him, "What has befallen you?" and he answered in a weak voice, "truly that girl is no girl at all, but she is the youth who owned the calf." They replied, "By God, there is no help but that we seize him and slay him;" whereto the Elder said, "Loose me and lead me to the Hammam that I may wash clean my skin of all this blood." Then they let him down and after mounting him upon a donkey they bore him to the baths. at this I went to the slaughter house and covered my body with bullocks' blood and stuck to it pledgets of cotton so that I became like one sorely diseased and I repaired to the same Hammam propped upon a staff and required admittance. They refused me saying, "The Shaykh of the Vagabonds is now in the baths nor may anyone go in to him."
I said to them, "I am a man with a malady," whereto one of them said, "This is a poor people, so let him come within." Accordingly I entered and found the Chief alone, whereupon I drew forth the tail and asked him, "O Shaykh, is this the tail of a calf or a kid?" "Who are you?" he said, and I said, "I am the owner of the calf;" after which I fell to beating him with the tail until his breath was clean gone. Then I left him and went forth from the Hammam by another door so as to avoid his followers. Then her sister Dunyazad said, "How sweet and tasteful is your tale, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!" She said, "And where is this compared with what I should relate to you on the coming night if the King permits me to survive?"
Now when it was the next night and that was
The Four Hundred and Forty second Night
Dunyazad said to her, "In God's name, O my sister, If you be other than sleepy, finish for us your tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!" She replied, "With love and good will!" It has reached me,the director, the right guiding, lord of the counsel which is benefiting and of deeds fair seeming and worthy celebrating, that the youth, the owner of the calf, after beating the Shaykh of the Vagabonds
The First Larrikin. 225 with a sore bashing within the Bath went forth by the back door. Whereupon (continued the Larrikin) the followers of the Chief went in and they found him at his last breath and moaning from the excess of blows. they said, "What is the matter with you?" and he said, "That man with a malady who came into the Hammam is none other but the owner of the calf and he has killed me." So they took him up and carried him from the place and he said to them, "Do you bear me outside the city and set up for me a tent and lay me within it, after which do you gather round about me and never leave me at all." at this they mounted him upon an ass and bore him to the place he described and, pitching a tent, set him within it and all sat around him. Presently, the tidings reached me, whereupon I changed my clothes for a disguise and drew near the tent whereabouts I found a Badawi man feeding his sheep. So I said to him, "O Badawi, take this ducat and draw near that tent and call aloud, saying, 'I am the owner of the calf;' after which make off with your life for If they catch you they will slay you." "By God," the Arab said, "even if they rode their best mares none of them could come up with me!"
So I took charge of the sheep while the Badawi approaching the tent cried in his loudest voice, "By God, I am the owner of the calf." Hearing this the vagabonds sprang to their feet as one body and drew their weapons and rushed after the Badawi; but, when he had run some distance from the tent with all the men behind him, I went in and drawing from below my clothes the tail of the calf said, "O Shaykh, is this the tail of a calf or a kid?" The Elder asked, "Are you not he who cried out, I am the owner of the calf?" and I answered, "No, I am not," and came down upon him with the tail and beat him until he could no longer breathe. Then I took the properties belonging to his party and wrapping them in a sheet carried them off and quitting the place I went in to my mother and said to her, "Take them to the worth of the calf." Now those who had run after the Badawi did not stop pursuing him, yet could none of them come up with him and when they were tired they returned from the chase and did not stop walking until they entered the tent. There they found the Shaykh breathless nor could he move save to make signs; so they sprinkled a little water upon his face; and the life returned to him and he said to them, "truly the owner of the calf came to me and beat me till he killed me and the people who cried, 'I am the owner of the calf' is an accomplice of his."
Thereupon all grew furious and the Elder said to them, "Bear me home and give out that your Shakyh is deceased; after which do you bathe my body and carry me to the cemetery and bury me by night and next morning disinter me so that the owner of this calf may hear that I am dead and leave me in peace. Indeed as long as I continue in this condition he will devise for me device after device and some day will come in to me and kill me downright." They did what their Shaykh bade them and began crying and keening and saying, "truly our Chief is deceased," so that the report was bruited abroad that the Shaykh of the Vagabonds had died. But I, the owner of the calf, said to myself, "By God, If he be dead, they will assuredly make for him some mourning ceremony."
Now when they had washed him and shrouded him and carried him out upon the bier, and were proceeding to the graveyard that they might bury him, and had reached half way to it, lo and behold! I joined the funeral train and suddenly walking under the coffin with a sharp packing needle in hand, Then her sister Dunyazad said, "How sweet is your story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable." She said,
The Second Larrikin. 227
"And where is this compared with that I should relate to you on the coming night if the King permits me to survive?"
Now when it was the next night and that was
The Four Hundred and Forty third Night
Dunyazad said to her, "In God's name, O my sister, If you be other than sleepy, finish for us your tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!" She replied, "With love and good will!" It has reached me,the director, the right guiding, lord of the counsel which is benefiting and of deeds fair seeming and worthy celebrating, that I walked under the bier packing needle in hand, and thrust it into the Shaykh of the Vagabonds, at which he cried out and sprang up and sat upright upon his shell. Now when the King heard this tale he laughed and was cheered and the Larrikin resumed:—By God, when I thrust the needle into him and he sat upright in his coffin all the folk fell to wondering and cried, "truly the dead has come to life." Hereupon, O my lord, my fear grew great and I said to myself, "All adventures are not like one another: Perhaps the crowd will recognise me and slay me." So I went forth the city and came here. Cried the King, "Of a truth, this tale is marvellous;" when the second Larrikin exclaimed, "By God, O my lord, my tale is rarer and stranger than this, for indeed within it I did deeds worthy of the Jinn mad and amongst the many tricks that came from my hand I died and was buried and I devised a device by which they drew me from my tomb." the King said, "Walláhi, if your tale be more wondrous than that which forewent it I needs must reward you with somewhat. But now tell us of what happened you." So the man began to relate the