Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/275

247 the first, ‘he trusted not the old woman nor gave her his ass, but because he saw that the dyer had entrusted her with the dyery and its contents.’ And a third said, ‘O Hajj, since thou hast lodged her with thee, it behoves thee to get the man back his ass.’ Then they made for the house, and the tale will come round to them again.

Meanwhile, the young merchant abode awaiting the old woman’s coming with her daughter, but she came not; whilst the lady in like manner sat expecting her return with leave from her son, the possessed, the Sheikh’s deputy, to go in to him. When she was weary of waiting, she rose to visit the Sheikh by herself and went down into the saloon, where she found the young merchant, who said to her, ‘Come: where is thy mother, who brought me hither to marry thee?’ ‘My mother is dead,’ answered she; ‘art thou the old woman’s son the ecstatic, the deputy of the Sheikh Aboulhemlat?’ Quoth he, ‘The swindling old beldam is no mother of mine; she hath cheated me and taken my clothes and a thousand dinars.’ ‘And me also hath she swindled,’ said Khatoun; ‘for she brought me to see the Sheikh Aboulhemlat and stripped me.’ Quoth he, ‘I look to thee for my clothes and my thousand dinars.’ ‘And I,’ answered she, ‘look to thee to make good my clothes and jewellery.’

At this moment in came the dyer and seeing them both stripped of their clothes, said to them, ‘Tell me where your mother is.’ So they told him their several cases and he exclaimed, ‘Alas, for the loss of my goods and those of the folk!’ And the ass-driver said, ‘Alas for my ass! Give me my ass, O dyer!’ Then said the dyer, ‘This old woman is a sharper. Come forth, that I may lock the door.’ Quoth the young merchant, ‘It were a disgrace to thee that we should enter thy house, clothed, and leave it, naked.’ So the dyer clad him and the damsel and sent her back to her house. Then he shut the dyery and said to the young