Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/400

372 said to them, “How is it with you all and what befell you in the house?” When they saw him, they exclaimed, “Praised be God for thy safety!” and threw themselves upon him, and his children clung to him, crying, “Alas, our father! Praised be God for thy preservation, O our father!” Then said his wife, “Thou art well, praised be God who hath shown us thy face in safety!” And indeed she was confounded and her reason fled, when she saw him, and she said, “O my lord, how did you escape, thou and thy friends the merchants?” “And how fared it with thee in the house?” asked he. “We were all in good health and case,” answered they; “nor has aught befallen us in the house, save that thy slave Kafour came to us, bareheaded, with his clothes torn and crying out, ‘Alas, my master! Alas, my master!’ So we asked what was the matter, and he said, ‘The wall of the garden has fallen on my master and his friends, and they are all dead.’” “By Allah,” said my master, “he came to me but now, crying out, ‘Alas, my mistress! Alas, her children!’ and said, ‘My mistress and her children are all dead.’” Then he looked round and seeing me with my torn turban hanging down my neck, shrieking and weeping violently and strewing earth on my head, cried out at me. So I came to him and he said, “Woe to thee, O pestilent slave, O whoreson knave, O accurst of race! What mischiefs hast thou wrought! But I will strip thy skin from thy flesh and cut thy flesh off thy bones!” “By Allah,” replied I, “thou canst do nothing with me, for thou boughtest me with my fault, with witnesses to testify against thee that thou didst so and that thou knewest of my fault, which is that I tell one lie every year. This is but half a lie, but by the end of the year, I will tell the other half, and it will then be a whole lie.” “O dog, son of a dog,” exclaimed my master, “O most accursed of slaves, is this but a half lie? Indeed, it is a great calamity! Go out from me; thou art free