Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/393

359 November 808, four months only before the death of Er Reshid.

The mock repentance shown by the latter, as evinced in his unreasoning anger against the innocent minister of his vengeance upon Jaafer, did not prevent him from offering the last indignities to the great Vizier’s remains. His head he caused to be hung up at one and his trunk at the other end of the bridge over the Tigris, opposite the part where the Serat, the canal on which Baghdad was originally built, joins that river. Here they remained for some months, till Er Reshid, being about to leave Baghdad, caused them to be taken down and burnt like those of the vilest criminal, the greatest indignity that could be offered to a Muslim, whose religion attaches the utmost importance to due burial and inculcates the necessity of appearing before God whole as at birth.

Authorities differ as to what became of Abbaseh, the hapless cause of this horrible tragedy; but, according to the most credible accounts, she was shut up in a chest and thrown into a pit, which her terrible brother caused to be then and there dug under the floor of her apartment. Then he sent for her children, who (says the old