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 offense against thee." "Thou art acquitted," replied the old woman shortly. Then she returned home, where she pined after her daughter-in-law, her grandchildren, and for a sight of her son. And she dug in the house three graves, and betook herself to them weeping all whiles of the day and watches of the night.

Now as regards Hasan, he stayed with the Princesses three months, after which he bade them farewell. And they gave him five loads of gold and the like of silver, and one load of victual, and accompanied him on his homeward way till he conjured them to return. Then each one embraced him and bade him a loving farewell.

Now when he reached Bagdad and entered his own home, he found his mother wasted and worn as thin as a toothpick for excess of mourning and watching and weeping, and when he asked her of his wife and children she fainted. Thereupon he searched the house, but there were no traces of them; and when he found the chest broken and the feather dress missing, he knew that his wife had possessed herself of it and flown away with her children. Then he returned to his mother and questioned her. And she wept and said: "O my son, may Allah requite thee their loss! These are their three tombs." Whereupon his anguish was so great that she despaired of his life. Then he brandished a stick, and coming to his mother said: "Except thou tell me the truth I will strike off thy head and kill myself." She replied, "O my son, do not such deed, put up thy sword and sit down till I tell thee what hath