Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/264

236 month. Moreover, her husband had been town captain of Baghdad and had a monthly wage from the Khalif of a thousand dinars; but he died, leaving two daughters, one of whom was married and had a son, by name Ahmed el Lekit, and the other, Zeyneb, unmarried. So Zeyneb said to her mother, ‘Up and play off some trick that may make us notorious in Baghdad, so haply we may get our father’s stipends for ourselves.’ ‘As thy head liveth, O my daughter,’ answered the old woman, ‘I will play off such rogueries in Baghdad as never did Ahmed ed Denef nor Hassan Shouman!’

So saying, she rose and bound her face with the chin-veil and donned clothes such as the Soufi Fakirs wear, trousers of white wool falling over her heels, and a gown of the like stuff and a broad girdle. Moreover, she took an ewer and filled it to the neck with water; after which she set three dinars in the mouth and stopped it up with palm fibre. Then she threw round her neck a rosary as big as a load of firewood and taking in her hand a flag, made of parti-coloured rags, red and yellow and green, went out, saying, ‘Allah! Allah!’ with tongue celebrating the praises of God, whilst her heart galloped in the race-course of abominations, seeking how she might play some sharping trick in the town. She fared on from street to street, till she came to an alley swept and watered and paved with marble, where she saw a vaulted gateway, with a threshold of alabaster, and a Moorish porter standing at the door, which was of sandal-wood, plated with brass and furnished with a ring of silver.

Now this house belonged to the Chief of the Khalif’s Ushers, a man of great wealth in lands and houses and stipends, and he was called the Amir Hassan Sherr et Teric for that his blow forewent his word. He was married to a handsome girl, whom he loved and who had