Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/326

292 reached this city yestereve and finding the gate shut, lay down to sleep without: but, as I lay betwixt sleep and wake, I saw four women come up, one riding on a broom, another on a wine-jar, a third on an oven-peel and a fourth on a black bitch, and knew that they were witches making for the city. One of them came up to me and kicked me with her foot and beat me grievously with a fox’s tail she had in her hand, whereat I was wroth and smote her with a knife I had with me, wounding her in the hinder parts, as she turned to flee from me. When she felt the wound, she fled before me and in her flight let drop this casket, which I picked up and opening, found therein these costly jewels. Wherefore do thou take it, for I have no need of it, being a wanderer in the mountains, who have put away the world from my heart and renounced it and all that is in it, seeking [only] the favour of God the Most High.” Then he set the casket before the king and went away. The king opened the box and emptying out all the trinkets it contained, fell to turning them over, till he chanced upon a necklace of which he had made gift to the vizier to whom the girl belonged. So he called the vizier in question and said to him, “This is the necklace I gave thee?” He knew it and answered, “It is; and I gave it to a singing-girl of mine.” Quoth the king, “Fetch her to me forthwith.” So he fetched her to him, and he said, “Uncover her hinder parts and see if there be a wound therein or no.” The vizier accordingly bared her backside and finding a knife wound there, said, “Yes, O my lord, there is a wound.” Then said the king, “Doubtless, this is the witch of whom the devotee told me,” and bade cast her into the witches’ well. So they carried her thither forthwith.

As soon as it was night and the goldsmith knew that his plot had succeeded, he repaired to the pit, taking with him a purse of a thousand dinars, and entering into