Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/28

10 being gone, he went in to her and sought her favours; but she denied him and clave fast unto her chastity. The more she repelled him, the more urgently he pressed his suit upon her, till, despairing of her and fearing lest she should acquaint his brother with his conduct, when he returned, he suborned false witnesses to testify against her of adultery and cited her before the King of the day, who adjudged her to be stoned. So they dug a pit and making her sit therein, stoned her, till she was covered with stones, and [the wicked brother] said, ‘Be the pit her grave.’

But, when it was dark night, a passer-by, making for a neighbouring hamlet, heard her groaning and pulling her out of the pit, carried her home to his wife, who dressed her wounds and tended her till she recovered. The peasant’s wife had a child, which she gave to the woman to nurse, and the latter used to lodge with the child in another house by night. Now a certain thief saw her and lusted after her. So he sent to her, to require her of love, but she denied herself to him; wherefore he resolved to kill her and making his way into her chamber by night, whilst she slept, thought to strike at her with a knife; but it smote the child and killed it; which when he knew, fear overtook him and he went forth the house and God preserved her from him.

When she awoke in the morning, she found the child by her side slain; and presently his mother came and seeing the boy dead, said to her, ‘It was thou didst murder him.’ Therewith she beat her grievously and would have killed her; but her husband interposed and delivered the woman, who fled forth for her life, knowing not whither she should go. Presently, she came to a village, where she saw a crowd of people collected about the trunk of a tree, on which was a man crucified, but still in the chains of life. She asked what he had done and they said, ‘He hath committed a crime, which nothing can