Part 29

Bedreddin Hassan was extremely surprised to see, all on a sudden, a man that he knew so well, and that now appeared with a quite different air from that with which he pronounced the terrible sentence of death against him. Ah! cried Bedreddin, it was you that condemned me so unjustly, to a kind of death, the thoughts of which make me shudder; and all for a cream tart without pepper. The vizier fell a laughing, and to put him out of suspense, told him, how, by the ministry of a genie, (for hunch-back’s relation made him suspect the adventure,) he had been at his house, and had married his daughter instead of the sultan’s groom of the stables; then he acquainted him, that he had discovered him to be his nephew by a book written by the hand of Nourreddin Ali, and pursuant to that discovery, had gone from Cairo to Balsora in quest of him. My dear nephew, added he, embracing him with every expression of tenderness, I ask your pardon for all I have made you undergo since I discovered you. I had a mind to bring you to my house before I told you your happiness; which ought now to be so much the dearer to you, as it has cost you so much perplexity and affliction. To atone for all your afflictions, comfort yourself with the joy of being in the company of those who ought to be dearest to you. While you are dressing yourself, I will go and acquaint your mother, who is beyond measure impatient to see you: and will likewise bring to you your son, whom you saw at Damascus, and for whom you showed so much affection without knowing him.

No words are of sufficient energy to express the joy of Bedreddin, when he saw his mother and his son. These three embraced and showed all the transports that love and tenderness could inspire. The mother spoke to Bedreddin in the most moving terms; she mentioned the grief she had felt for his long absence, and the tears she had shed. --Little Agib, instead of flying his father’s embraces, as at Damascus, received them with all the marks of pleasure. And Bedreddin Hassan, divided between two objects so worthy of his love, thought he could not give sufficient marks of his affection.

While this passed at Schemseddin Mohammed’s, the vizier was gone to the palace to give the sultan an account of the happy success of his voyage; and the sultan was so charmed with the recital of the story, that he ordered it to be taken down in writing, and carefully preserved among the archives of the kingdom. After Schemseddin’s return to his house, having prepared a noble feast, he sat down to table with his family, and all the household passed the day in festivity and mirth.

The vizier Giafar, having thus made an end of the story of Bedreddin Hassan, told the caliph Haroun Alraschid, that this was what he had to relate to his majesty. The caliph found the story so surprising, that without farther hesitation, he granted his slave Rihan’s pardon; and to condole the young man for the grief of having unhappily deprived himself of a woman whom he loved so tenderly, married him to one of his slaves, bestowed liberal gifts upon him, and maintained him till he died.

The Story of the Little Hunch-back.

There was in former times at Casgar, upon the utmost skirts of Tartary, a tailor, that had a pretty wife, whom he doted on, and was reciprocally loved by her. One day as he sat at work, a little hunch-back came and eat down at the shop-door, and fell to singing and playing upon a tabor. The tailor took pleasure to hear him, and resolved to take him into his house to please his wife. This little fellow, said he to his wife, will divert us both this evening. He invited him in, and the other readily accepted of the invitation; so the tailor shut up his shop, and carried him home. As soon as they came in, the tailor’s wife having before laid the cloth, it being supper time, set before them a good dish of fish; but as the little man was eating, he unluckily swallowed a large bone, of which he died in a few minutes, notwithstanding all that the tailor and his wife could do to prevent it. Both were heartily frightened at the accident, knowing it happened in their house; and there was reason to fear that if the magistrates happened to hear of it they would be punished as murderers. However, the husband found an expedient to get rid of the corpse: he reflected there was a Jewish doctor that lived just by, and having presently contrived a scheme, his wife and he took the corpse, the one by the feet, and the other by the head, and carried it to the physician’s house. They knocked at the door, from which a steep pair of stairs led to his chamber. The servant maid came down without any light, and opening the door, asked what they wanted. Go up again, said the tailor, if you please, and tell your master, we have brought him a man who is very ill, and wants his advice. Here, said he, putting a piece of money into her hand, give him that beforehand, to convince him that we do not mean to impose on him. While the servant was gone up to acquaint her master with the welcome news, the tailor and his wife nimbly conveyed the hunch-backed corpse to the head of the stairs, and leaving it there, hurried away.

In the mean time, the maid told the doctor, that a man and a woman waited for him at the door, desiring he would come down and look at a sick man, whom they had brought with them, and clapping into his hand the money she had received, the doctor was transported with joy: being paid beforehand, he thought it was a good patient, and should not be neglected. Light, light, cried he to the maid; follow me nimbly. So saying, without staying for the light, he gets to the stair-head in such haste, that, stumbling against the corpse, he gave him a kick that made him tumble down to the stair-foot; he had almost fallen himself along with him. A light! a light! cried he to the maid; quick, quick! At last, the maid came with a light, and he went down stairs with her; but when he saw that what he had kicked down was a dead man, he was so frightened, that he invoked Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Esdras, and all the other prophets of the law. Unhappy man that I am! said he, why did I attempt to come down without a light! I have killed the poor fellow that was brought to me to be cured; questionless, I am the cause of his death, and unless Esdras’s ass [68] comes to assist me, I am ruined. Mercy on me! they will be here out of hand, and drag me out of my house for a murderer.

Notwithstanding the perplexity and jeopardy he was in, he had the precaution to shut his door, for fear any one passing by in the street should observe the mischance of which he reckoned himself to be the author. Then he took the corpse into his wife’s chamber, who was ready to swoon at the sight. Alas! cried she, we are utterly ruined and undone, unless we fall upon some expedient to get the corpse out of our house this night. Beyond all question, if we harbour it till morning, our lives must pay for it. What a sad mischance is this! What did you do to kill this man? That is not the question, replied the Jew; our business now is to find out a remedy for such a shocking accident.

The doctor and his wife consulted together how to get rid of his dead corpse that night. The doctor racked his brain in vain, he could not think of any stratagem to get clear; but his wife, who was more fertile in invention, said, I have a thought just come into my head: let us carry the corpse to the leads of our house, and tumble him down the chimney into the house of the Mussulman, our next neighbour.

This Mussulman was one of the sultan’s purveyors for furnishing oil, butter, and all sorts of fat articles, and had a magazine in his house, where the rats and mice made prodigious havoc.

The Jewish doctor approving the proposed expedient, his wife and he took the little hunch-back up to the roof of the house; and, clapping ropes under his arm-pits, let him down the chimney into the purveyor’s chamber so softly and dexterously, that he stood upright against the wall, as if he had been alive. When they found he had reached the bottom, they pulled up the ropes, and left the corpse in that posture. They were scarce got down into their chamber, when the purveyor went into his, being just come from a wedding-feast, with a lantern in his hand. He was greatly surprised when, by the light of his lantern, he descried a man standing upright in his chimney; but being naturally a stout man, and apprehending it was a thief, he took up a good stick, and making straight up to the hunch-back, Ah, said he, I thought it was the rats and mice that eat my butter and tallow, and it is you come down the chimney to rob me! But I think you will not come here again upon this errand. This said, he falls upon the man, and gives him many strokes with his stick. The corpse fell down flat on the ground, and the purveyor redoubled his blows; but, observing the body not to move, he stood to consider a little, and then, perceiving it was a dead corpse, fear succeeded his anger. Wretched man that I am, said he, what have I done! I have killed a man! Alas! I have carried my revenge too far. Good God, unless thou pity me, my life is gone! Cursed, ten thousand times accursed, be the fat and the oil that gave occasion to this my commission of such a criminal action! He stood pale and thunderstruck: he thought he saw the officers already come to drag him to condign punishment, and could not tell what resolution to take.

The sultan of Casgar’s purveyor had never noticed the little man’s hump-back when he was beating him; but as soon as he perceived it, he threw out a thousand imprecations against him. Ah, you cursed hunch-back, cried he, you crooked son of a bitch! would to God you had robbed me of all my fat, and I had not found you here! I had not then been so much perplexed for the sake of you and your vile hunch. Oh! ye stars that twinkle in the heavens, give light to none but me in this dangerous juncture. As soon as he had uttered these words, he took the crooked corpse upon his shoulders, and carried him out of doors to the end of the street, where he set him upright, resting against a shop, and so trudged home again, without looking behind him.

A few minutes before the break of day, a Christian merchant, who was very rich, and furnished the sultan’s palace with various articles --this merchant, I say, having sat up all night at a debauch, stepped at that instant out of his house to go to bathe. --Though he was drunk, he was sensible that the night was far spent, and that the people would quickly be called to the morning prayers, at break of day; therefore he quickened his pace to get in time to the bath, for fear any Mussulman meeting him in his way to the mosque should carry him to prison for a drunkard. As he came to the end of the street, he stopped upon some necessary occasion against the shop where the sultan’s purveyor had put the hunch-backed corpse, which being jostled, tumbled upon the merchant’s back. The merchant, thinking it was a robber that came to attack him, knocked him down with a swinging box on the ear, and after redoubling his blows, cried out “thieves.”

The outcry alarmed the watch, who came up immediately; and finding a Christian beating a Mussulman, (for hump-back was of our religion,) What reason have you, said he, to abuse a Mussulman after this rate? He would have robbed me, replied the merchant, and jumped upon my back with intent to take me by the throat. If he did, said the watch, you have revenged yourself sufficiently; come, get off him. At the same time he stretched out his hand to help little hump-back up; but observing he was dead, Oh! said he, is it thus that a Christian dares to assassinate a Mussulman? So saying, he laid hold of the Christian, and carried him to the house of the lieutenant of the police, where he was kept till the judge was stirring, and ready to examine him. In the mean time, the Christian merchant grew sober, and the more he reflected upon his adventure, the less could he conceive how such single blows of his fist could kill the man.

The judge having heard the report of the watch, and viewed the corpse, which they had taken care to bring to his house, interrogated the Christian merchant upon it, and he could not deny the crime, though he had not committed it. But the Judge, considering that little hump-back belonged to the sultan, for he was one of his buffoons, would not put the Christian to death, till he knew the sultan’s pleasure. For this end he went to the palace, and acquainted the sultan with what had happened, and received from the sultan this answer: I have no mercy to show to a Christian that kills a Mussulman; go, do your office. Upon this the judge ordered a gibbet to be erected, and sent criers all over the city to proclaim, that they were about to hang a Christian for killing a Mussulman.

At length the merchant was brought out of jail to the foot of the gallows; and the hangman having put the rope about his neck, was going to give him a swing, when the sultan’s purveyor pushing through the crowd, made up to the gibbet, calling to the hangman to stop, for that the Christian had not committed the murder, but himself had done it. Upon that the officer who attended the execution began to question the purveyor, who told him every circumstance of his killing the little hump-back, and how he conveyed his corpse to the place where the Christian merchant found him. You were about, added he, to put to death an innocent person; for how can he be guilty of the death of a man who was dead before he came at him? It is enough for me to have killed a Mussulman, without loading my conscience with the death of a Christian, who is not guilty.

The sultan of Casgar’s purveyor having publicly charged himself with the death of the little hunch-backed man, the officer could not avoid doing justice to the merchant. Let the Christian go, said he to the executioner, and hang this man in his room, since it appears by his own confession that he is guilty. Thereupon, the hangman released the merchant, and clapped the rope around the purveyor’s neck; but just when he was going to pull him up, he heard the voice of the Jewish doctor, earnestly entreating him to suspend the execution, and make room for him to come to the foot of the gallows.

When he appeared before the judge, My lord, said he, this Mussulman you are going to hang is not guilty; all the guilt lies at my door. Last night, a man and a woman, unknown to me, came to my door with a sick man they had brought along; my maid went and opened it without a light, and received from them a piece of money, with a commission to come and desire me, in their name, to step down, and look at the sick person. While she was delivering her message to me, they conveyed the sick person to the stair-head, and disappeared. I went down without staying till my servant had lighted a candle, and in the dark happened to stumble upon the sick person, and kick him down stairs. At length, I saw he was dead, and that it was the crooked Mussulman, whose death you are now about to avenge. So my wife and I took the corpse, and after conveying it up to the roof of our house, shoved it to the roof of the purveyor, our next neighbour, whom you were going to put to death unjustly, and let it down the chimney into his chamber. The purveyor, finding it in his house, took the little man for a thief; and after beating him, concluded he had killed him; but that it was not so, you will be convinced by this my deposition; so that I am the only author of the murder; --and though it was committed undesignedly, I have resolved to expiate my crime, that I may not have to charge myself with the death of two Mussulmen, and hinder you from executing the sultan’s purveyor, whose innocence I have now revealed. So pray dismiss him, and put me in his place, for I alone am the cause of the death of the little man.

The chief justice being persuaded that the Jewish doctor was the murderer, gave orders to the executioner to seize him, and release the purveyor. Accordingly the doctor was just going to be hung up, when the tailor appeared, crying to the executioner to hold his hand, and make room for him, that he might come and make his confession to the chief judge. Room being made, My lord, said he, you have narrowly escaped taking away the lives of three innocent persons; but if you will have the patience to hear me, I will discover to you the real murderer of the crook-backed man. If his death is to be expiated by another, that must be mine. Yesterday, towards the evening, as I was at work in my shop, and was disposed to be merry, the little hunch-back came to my door half-drunk, and sat down before it. He sung a little, and so I invited him to pass the evening at my house. He accepted of the invitation, and went in with me. We sat down to supper, and I gave him a plate of fish; but in eating, a bone stuck in his throat; and though my wife and I did our utmost to relieve him, he died in a few minutes. His death afflicted us extremely; and for fear of being charged with it, we carried the corpse to the Jewish doctor’s house, and knocked at the door. The maid coming down and opening the door, I desired her to go up again forthwith, and ask her master to come down and give his advice to a sick person that we had brought along with us; and withal, to encourage him, I charged her to give him a piece of money, which I had put into her hand. When she was gone up again, I carried the hunch-back up stairs, and laid him upon the uppermost step, and then my wife and I made the best of our way home. The doctor coming down, made the corpse fall down stairs, and thereupon he took himself to be the author of his death. This being the case, continued he, release the doctor, and let me die in his room.

The chief justice and all the spectators could not sufficiently admire the strange events that ensued upon the death of the little crooked man. Let the Jewish doctor go, said the judge, and hang up the tailor, since he confesses the crime. It is certain, this history is very uncommon, and deserves to be recorded in letters of gold. The executioner having dismissed the doctor, made every thing ready to tie up the tailor.

While the executioner was making ready to hang up the tailor, the sultan of Casgar, wanting the company of his crooked jester, asked where he was; and one of his officers told him, The Hunchback, sir, whom you inquire after, got drunk last night, and contrary to his custom, slipped out of the palace, and went strolling about the city, and this morning was found dead. A man was brought before the chief justice and charged with the murder of him; but when he was going to be hanged, up came a man, and after him another, who took the charge upon themselves, and cleared one another. This lasted some time, and the judge is now examining a third man, who gives himself out for the real author of the murder.

Upon this intelligence, the sultan of Casgar sent an officer to the place of execution. Go, said he, in all haste, and tell the judge to bring the accused persons before me immediately; and, withal, bring the corpse of poor Humpback, that I may see him once more. Accordingly, the officer went, and happened to arrive at the place of execution at the very time that the executioner was going to tie up the tailor. --He cried aloud to the executioner to suspend the execution. The hangman knowing the officer, did not dare to proceed, but untied the tailor; and then the officer acquainted the judge with the sultan’s pleasure. The judge obeyed, and went straight to the palace, accompanied by the tailor, the Jewish doctor, and the Christian merchant; and made four of his men carry the hunch-backed corpse along with him.

When they appeared before the sultan, the judge threw himself at the prince’s feet, and after recovering himself, gave him a faithful relation of what he knew of the story of the hump-backed man. The story appeared so extraordinary to the sultan, that he ordered his own historian to write it down with all its circumstances; then addressing himself to the audience: Did you ever hear, said he, such a surprising event as this, that has happened upon the account of my little crooked buffoon? Then the Christian merchant, after falling down, and touching the earth with his forehead, spoke as follows: Most puissant monarch, said he, I know a story yet more astonishing than that you have now spoken of; if your majesty will give me leave, I will tell it you. The circumstances are such, that nobody can hear them without emotion. --Well, said the sultan, I give you leave; and so the merchant went on as follows:

The Story told by the Christian Merchant.

Sir, before I commence the recital of the story you have permitted me to relate, I beg leave to acquaint you that I have not the honour to be born in any part of your majesty’s empire. I am a stranger, born at Cairo, in Egypt, a Copt by nation, and by religion a Christian. My father was a broker, and got a good estate, which he left me at his death. I followed his example, and took up the same employment; and one day at Cairo, as I was standing in the public inn for the corn merchants, there came up to me a young handsome man, well dressed, and mounted upon an ass. He saluted me, and pulling out a handkerchief, in which he had a sample of sesame, or Turkey corn, asked me what a bushel of such sesame would fetch? I examined the corn that the young man showed me, and told him, it was worth a hundred drachms of silver per bushel. Pray, said he, look out for some merchant to take it at that price, and come to me at the Victory gate, where you will see a khan at a distance from the houses. So saying, he left me the sample, and I showed it to several merchants, who told me, that they would take as much as I could spare at a hundred and ten drachms per bushel, so that I made an account to get ten drachms per bushel for my share. Full of the expectation of this profit, I went to the Victory gate, where I found the young merchant expecting me, and he carried me into his granary, which was full of sesame. He had a hundred and fifty bushels of it, which I measured out, and having carried them off upon asses, sold them for five thousand drachms of silver. Out of this sum, said the young man, there is five hundred drachm; coming to you, at the rate of ten drachms per bushel. This I give to you, and as for the rest which is to come to me, do you take it out of the merchant’s hand, and keep it till I call or send for it, for I have no occasion for it at present. I made answer, it should be ready for him whenever he pleased to call for it; and so, kissing his hand, took leave of him with a grateful sense of his generosity.

A month passed before he came near me; then he asked for his four thousand five hundred drachms of silver. I told him they were ready, and should be told down to him immediately. He was then mounted on his ass, and I desired him to alight, and do me the honour to eat a mouthful with me before he received his money. No, said he, I cannot alight at present; I have urgent business that obliges me to be at a place just by here; but I will return this way, and then take the money, which I desire you would have in readiness. This said, he disappeared, and I still expected his return, but it was a full month before he came again. I thought to myself, the young man has great confidence in me, leaving so great a sum in my hands without knowing me; any other man would have been afraid I should have run away with it. To be short, he came again at the end of the third month, and was still mounted on his ass, but finer dressed than before.