Page:Sinbad the sailor & other stories from the Arabian nights.djvu/307

 distracted with grief, and beat upon my breast and pluck my beard and tear my garments, and prostrate myself in sorrow before him, crying, 'There is no deity but Allah!' And, when he has lifted me up and wiped away my tears, and drawn from me the history of thy death, then will he do by me in like manner as Zubeydeh will have done by thee. He will bestow on me a hundred pieces of gold and a piece of fine spun silk, bidding me go and prepare thy corpse for decent burial. Then I will come to thee and lay my piece of silk by thine, and place my hundred pieces on thy hundred pieces, and thenceforward we shall live in luxury, my Nuzhat-el-Fuad."

His wife laughed with glee and clapped her hands. "Verily, Abu-I-Hasan," she cried, "thou art a wag."

Still laughing, she proceeded to lay him out, directed by her lord and master, who, though dead, failed nothing in his instructions as to the minutest details—even to placing upon his stomach a knife and a pinch of salt. Then she put on the garb of woe and dishevelled her hair, and ran weeping to the Lady Zubeydeh, who, seeing her thus distracted, was filled with pity and questioned her gently as to the cause of so great a grief. But Nuzhat-el-Fuad's sobs and tears rose to shrieks of wild despair before at length she made the matter plain. And, when Zubeydeh knew it, she wept with her and mourned for Abu-I-Hasan the Wag; and she bestowed upon her a hundred pieces of gold and a piece of fine spun silk, bidding her prepare his body for the grave.

When Nuzhat-el-Fuad returned to the house and showed Abu-I-Hasan the first fruits of his plan, he arose and, sharing her delight, danced with glee. Together they took the spoil and laid it by; then they addressed themselves to the second 215