Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/212

186 happiness. And I said in myself, “When I return to my native land, I will carry her with me.” But whatever is decreed to a man, needs must it be, and none knoweth what shall befall him.

We lived thus a great while, till God the Most High bereft a neighbour of mine of his wife. Now he was a friend of mine; so I went in to condole with him on his loss and found him in very ill plight, full of trouble and weary of heart and mind. I condoled with him and comforted him, saying, “Mourn not for thy wife; God will surely give thee a better in her stead, and thy life shall be long, so it please the Most High.” But he wept sore and replied, “O my friend, how can I marry another wife and how shall God replace her to me with a better than she, seeing that I have but one day left to live?” “O my brother,” said I, “ [sic]return to thy senses and forebode not thine own death, for thou art well and in good health and case.” “By thy life, O my friend,” rejoined he, “to-morrow thou wilt lose me and wilt never see me again till the Day of Resurrection.” “How so?” asked I, and he said, “This very day they bury my wife, and me with her in one tomb; for it is the custom with us, if the wife die first, to bury the husband alive with her, and in like manner the wife, if the husband die first; so that neither may enjoy life after the other.” “By Allah,” cried I, “this is a most vile custom and not to be endured of any!”

Meanwhile, the most part of the townsfolk came in and fell to condoling with my friend for his wife and himself. Presently, they laid the dead woman out and setting her on a bier, carried her and her husband without the city, till they came to a place in the side of a mountain by the sea, where they raised a great stone and discovered the mouth of a stone-lined pit or well, leading down into a vast underground cavern that ran beneath the mountain.