Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/58

46 When he heard this, he wept like the downpouring of the clouds. Then he knocked at the door and the women said, ‘Who is at the door?’ ‘It is I, the blacksmith,’ answered he and told them what the Cadi had said and how he would have them appear before him and make their plaint to him, that he might do them justice on their adversary. ‘How can we go to him,’ replied Zein el Mewasif, ‘seeing the door is locked on us and our feet shackled and the Jew hath the keys?’ Quoth the smith, ‘I will make keys for the locks and open the door and the shackles therewith.’ ‘But who will show us the Cadi’s house?’ asked she; and he said, ‘I will describe it to you.’ ‘But how,’ continued she, ‘can we appear before him, clad as we are in hair-cloth, smoked with sulphur?’ And he answered, ‘He will not reproach this to you, considering your case.’ So saying, he went forthright and made keys for the locks, wherewith he opened the door and the shackles, and loosing the latter from their legs, carried them forth and directed them to the Cadi’s house. Then Huboub did off the hair-cloth garments from her mistress’s body and carried her to the bath, where she washed her and clad her in silken raiment, and her colour returned to her.

Now, as luck would have it, her husband was abroad at a bride-feast in the house of one of the merchants; so she adorned herself after the fairest fashion and betook herself to the Cadi, who rose to receive her. She saluted him with dulcet speech and sweet words, transfixing him the while with the arrows of her glances, and said, ‘May God prolong the life of our lord the Cadi and strengthen him to do justice!’ Then she acquainted him with the affair of the blacksmith and that which he had done them of kindness and with the heart-confounding torments that the Jew had inflicted on her and her women and how they had been like to perish, nor was there any deliverance