Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/166

142 a butcher, but came not to him till after noonday, pale and disordered in face; so that he said in himself, ‘There hangs some mystery by this slave.’ For she used to visit him in her slave’s habit. [Quoth the butcher,] So, one day, when she came to me as usual, I went out after her, unseen, and ceased not to follow her from place to place, so as she saw me not, till she came to her lodging, without the city, and I looked in upon her, through a cranny, and saw her light a fire and cook the meat, of which she ate her fill and gave the rest to an ape she had with her. Then she put off her slave’s habit and donned the richest of women’s apparel; and so I knew that she was a woman. After this she set on wine and drank and gave the ape to drink; and he served her nigh half a score times, till she swooned away, when he threw a silken coverlet over her and returned to his place.

Thereupon I went down into the midst of the place and the ape, becoming aware of me, would have torn me in pieces; but I made haste to pull out my knife and slit his paunch. The noise aroused the young lady, who awoke, terrified and trembling; and when she saw the ape in this plight, she gave such a shriek, that her soul well-nigh departed her body. Then she fell down in a swoon, and when she came to herself, she said to me, “What moved thee to do thus? By Allah, I conjure thee to send me after him!” But I spoke her fair and engaged to her that I would stand in the ape’s stead, in the matter of much clicketing, till her trouble subsided and I took her to wife.

However, I fell short in this and could not endure to it; so I complained of her case to a certain old woman, who engaged to manage the affair and said to me, “Thou must bring me a cooking-pot full of virgin vinegar and a pound of pyrethrum.” So I brought her what she sought, and