41
and Mesrour and the old woman and entering, found Aboulhusn and his wife both stretched out [apparently] dead; which when the Lady Zubeideh saw, she wept and said, “They ceased not to bring [ill] news of my slave-girl, till she died; methinketh Aboulhusn’s death was grievous to her and that she died after him.”[1] Quoth the Khalif, “Thou shalt not forestall me with talk and prate. She certainly died before Aboulhusn, for he came to me with his clothes torn and his beard plucked out, beating his breast with two bricks, and I gave him a hundred dinars and a piece of silk and said to him, ‘Go, carry her forth [and bury her] and I will give thee a concubine other than she and handsomer, and she shall be in stead of her.’ But it would appear that her death was no light matter to him and he died after her;[2] so it is I who have beaten thee and gotten thy stake.”
The Lady Zubeideh answered him many words and the talk waxed amain between them. At last the Khalif sat down at the heads of the pair and said, “By the tomb of the Apostle of God (may He bless and preserve him!) and the sepulchres of my fathers and forefathers, whoso will tell me which of them died before the other, I will willingly give him a thousand dinars!” When Aboulhusn heard the Khalifs words, he sprang up in haste and said, “I died first, O Commander of the Faithful! Hand over the thousand dinars and quit thine oath and the conjuration by which thou sworest.” Then Nuzhet el Fuad rose also and stood up before the Khalif and the Lady Zubeideh, who both rejoiced in this and in their safety,
