The Arabian Nights Entertainments, vol 2 | Page 2

a man and 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 clapped into his hand
the money she had received. The doctor was transported with joy;
being paid beforehand, he thought it must needs be a good patient, and

should not be neglected. "Light, light," cried he to the maid; "follow me
quickly." As he spoke, he hastily ran towards the head of the stairs
without waiting for a light, and came against the corpse with so much
violence that he precipitated it to the bottom, and had nearly fallen with
it. "Bring me a light," cried he to the maid; "quick, quick." At last she
brought one, 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 his
nation. "Unhappy man that I am," said he, "why did I attempt to come
without a light! I have killed the poor fellow who was brought to me to
be cured: doubtless I am the cause of his death, and unless Esdras's ass
come 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 confusion into which he was
thrown, he had the precaution to shut his door, for fear any one passing
by should observe the accident of which he reckoned himself to be the
author. He then 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 can devise some expedient to get the corpse out of
our house this night. If we harbour it till morning we are lost. What a
deplorable misfortune is this! What have you done to kill this man?"
"That is not now the question," replied the Jew; "our business at present
is, to find a remedy for the evil which threatens us."
The doctor and his wife consulted how to dispose of the corpse that
night. The doctor racked his brain in vain, he could not think of any
stratagem to relieve his embarrassment; but his wife, who was more
fertile in invention, said, "A thought is just come into my head; let us
carry the corpse to the terrace of our house, and throw it down the
chimney of our Mussulmaun neighbour."
This Mussulmaun was one of the sultan's purveyors for furnishing oil,
butter, and articles of a similar nature, and had a magazine in his house,
where the rats and mice made prodigious havoc.
The Jewish doctor approving the proposed expedient, the 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 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
scarcely got down into their chamber, when the purveyor, who had just
returned from a wedding feast, went into his room, with a lanthorn in
his hand. He was not a little surprised to discover a man standing in his
chimney; but being a stout fellow, and apprehending him to be a thief,
he took up a stick, and making straight up to the hunch-back, "Ah!"
said he, "I thought the rats and mice ate my butter and tallow; but it is
you who come down the chimney to rob me? However, I think you will
have no wish to come here again." Upon this he attacked hunch-back,
and struck him several times with his stick. The corpse fell down flat
on the ground, and the purveyor redoubled his blows. But, observing
that the body did not move, he stood a little time to regard it; and then,
perceiving it to be dead, 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
occasioned me to commit so criminal an action." He stood pale and
thunderstruck; he fancied he already saw the officers 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
uttered