The Arabian Nights, Volume II of IV

by Unknown

OF THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK.

In the city of Casgar, which is situated near the farther extremity of Great Tartary, there formerly lived a tailor, who had the good fortune to possess a very beautiful wife, between whom and her husband there existed the strongest mutual affection. One day, while the tailor was at work in his shop, a little hunchbacked fellow came and sat down at the door, and began playing on a tymbal, which he accompanied with his voice. The tailor was much pleased with his performance, and resolved to carry him home, that he might entertain his wife, who would equally, he thought, with himself, be amused in the evening with his pleasant and humorous songs. He immediately therefore made the proposal to the little hunchback, who readily accepted the invitation; and the tailor directly shut up his shop, and took him home with him.

They were no sooner arrived than the tailor’s wife, who had already set out the table, as it was near supper time, placed upon it a very nice dish of fish, which she had been dressing. They all three then sat down; but in eating, the little hunchback had the misfortune to swallow a large fish-bone, which stuck fast in his throat, and almost instantly killed him, before the tailor or his wife could apply any relief. They were both most dreadfully frightened at this accident; for, as it happened in their house, they had great reason to fear it might come to the knowledge of some of the officers of justice, who would punish them as murderers; the husband, however, thought of an expedient to get rid of the dead body.

He recollected, that there lived in his neighbourhood, a physician, who was a Jew; and he formed a plan, which he directly began to put in execution. He and his wife took up the body, one by the head and the other by the feet, and carried it to the physician’s house. They knocked at the door, which was at the bottom of a steep and narrow flight of stairs that led to his apartment. A maid servant immediately came down, without even staying for a light; and opening the door, asked them what they wanted. “I will thank you to go and tell your master,” said the tailor, “that we have brought him a patient, who is very ill, and for whom we request his advice. Stop,” added he, holding out a piece of money in his hand, “give him this in advance, that he may be assured we do not intend he should lose his labour for nothing.” While the servant went back to inform her master, the Jewish physician, of this good news, the tailor and his wife quickly carried the body of the little hunchback up stairs, left him close to the door, and returned home as fast as possible.

In the mean time the servant went and told the physician, that a man and a woman were waiting for him at the door, and requested him to go down to see a sick person whom they had brought for that purpose. She then gave him the money she had received from the tailor. Transported with joy at the idea of being paid beforehand, he conceived it must be a most excellent patient, that they had brought him; and one who ought not to be neglected. “Bring a light directly,” cried he to the girl, “and follow me.”—“Having said this, he ran towards the staircase in such a hurry, that he did not wait for the light, and encountering little hunchback, he gave him such a blow with his foot, as sent him from the top of the stairs to the bottom; and he had some difficulty to prevent himself from following him. “Why don’t you come with the light?” he called out to the servant. She at last appeared, and they went down stairs. When the physician found that what had rolled down stairs turned out to be a dead man, he was so alarmed at the sight, that he invoked Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Esdras, and all the other prophets of the law to his assistance. “Wretch, that I am,” exclaimed he, “why did I not wait for the light? why did I go down in the dark? I have completely killed the sick man, whom they brought to me. I am the cause of his death, and if the good ass [1] of Esdras does not come to my assistance, I am a lost man. Alas, alas, they will come and drag me hence as a murderer.”

Notwithstanding the perplexity he was in, he had the precaution to shut his door, for fear, that as any one passed along the street, they might perchance discover the unfortunate accident, of which he believed himself to be the cause. He immediately took up the body, and carried it into his wife’s apartment, who was near fainting when she saw him come in with his fatal load. “Alas,” she cried, “we are quite lost, if we cannot find some means of getting rid of this dead man before to-morrow morning. We shall inevitably forfeit our lives, if we keep him till day breaks. What a misfortune! how could you kill this man?”—“Never mind, in this dilemma, how it happened,” said the Jew, “our only business at present is how to remedy so dreadful a calamity.”

The physician and his wife then consulted together upon the best means of ridding themselves of the body during the night. The husband pondered a long time, but could think of no stratagem likely to extricate them from this embarrassment; but his wife was more fertile in invention, and said, “A thought occurs to me. Let us take the carcase up to the terrace of our house, and let him down the chimney, into that of our neighbour’s, the mussulman.”

This mussulman was one of the sultan’s purveyors; and it was his office to furnish oil, butter, and all other articles of a similar kind. His warehouse for these things was in his dwelling-house, where the rats and mice used to make great havoc and destruction.

The Jewish physician having approved of his wife’s plan, they took the little hunchback and carried him to the roof of the house, and having first fastened a cord under his arms, they let him gently down the chimney into the purveyor’s apartment. They managed this so adroitly, that he remained standing on his feet against the wall, exactly as if he were alive. As soon as they found they had landed him, they drew up the cords, and left him precisely in the situation I have related. They had hardly gone down from the terrace, and retired to their chamber, when the purveyor went into his. He was just returned from a wedding feast, which he had been invited to partake of on that evening; and he had a lantern in his hand. He was very much surprised at seeing, by means of this light, a man standing up in the chimney: but as he was naturally of a brave and courageous disposition, and as he thought it was a thief, he seized hold of a large stick, with which he directly ran at little hunchback, “Ah, ah,” he cried, “I thought it was the rats and mice who eat my butter and tallow; and it is you, who come down the chimney, and rob me. I don’t think you will ever wish to visit me again.” In saying this he attacked hunchback, and gave him many hard blows. The body at last fell down, with its face on the ground. The purveyor then redoubled his blows; but at length remarking, that the body he struck did not make the least motion, he stopped to observe it. Perceiving then that it was a dead man, fear succeeded to rage. “What have I done, miserable wretch that I am!” he exclaimed. “Alas I have carried my vengeance too far. Good God, have pity upon me, or my life is gone. I wish all the butter and oil were destroyed a thousand times over, before they had caused me to commit so criminal an action.” He remained pale and confounded; and imagined he already saw the officers of justice coming to conduct him to his punishment: he knew not what course to follow.

While the sultan of Casgar’s purveyor was beating the little hunchback, he did not perceive his hump; the instant he did, he poured out an hundred imprecations on it. “Oh, you rascal of a hunchback, you dog of deformity? would to God you had robbed me of all my fat and grease before I had found you here. I should not then have got into the scrape I have, and be hanged to you, and your rascally hump. O ye stars, which shine in the heavens,” he cried, “shed your light to lead me out of the imminent danger in which I am.” Having said this, he took the body of the hunchback upon his shoulders, went out of his chamber, and walked into the street, where he set it upright against a shop, and having done this, he made the best of the way to his house, without once looking behind him.

A little while before day-break, a Christian merchant who was very rich, and who furnished the palace of the sultan with most things which were wanted there, having passed the night in revelry and debauchery, was just come from home in his way to a bath. Although he was much intoxicated, he had still sufficient recollection to know, that the night was far advanced, and that the people would very soon be called to early prayers. It was for this reason that he was making all the haste he could in order to arrive at the bath, for fear any mussulman, as he was going to mosque, should meet him, and order him to prison as a drunkard. When he was at the end of the street, however, he stopped, for some occasion or other, close to the shop against which the sultan’s purveyor had placed little hunchback’s body, which at the very first touch fell directly against the merchant’s back. The latter took him for a robber, that was attacking him; and therefore knocked him down with his fist, with which he struck him on the head. He immediately repeated his blows, and began calling out, “Thief, thief.”

The guard, belonging to that quarter of the city, came directly on hearing his cries; and seeing that it was a Christian who was beating a mussulman, (for little hunchback was of our religion,) “What business have you,” he said, “to ill-treat a mussulman in that manner?”—“He wanted to rob me,” answered the merchant, “and he attacked me behind in order to seize me by my throat.”—“You have revenged yourself pretty well,” replied the guard, taking hold of the merchant’s arm, and pulling him away, “let him go therefore.” At the same time he held out his hand to the hunchback, to assist him in getting up; but observing that he was dead, “Oh, oh,” he cried, “is it thus then, that a Christian has the impudence to assassinate a mussulman.” Having said this, he arrested the Christian merchant, and carried him before the magistrate of the police, from whence they sent him to prison, till the judge had risen, and was ready to examine the accused. In the mean time the merchant became completely sober; and the more he reflected upon this adventure, the less could he comprehend how a single blow with the fist was capable of taking away the life of a man.

Upon the report of the guard, and after having seen the body, which they had brought with them, the judge examined the Christian merchant, who could not deny the crime, although he in fact was not guilty of it. As the little hunchback belonged to the sultan, for he was one of his buffoons, the judge determined not to put the Christian to death, till he had learnt the will of the prince. He went, therefore, to the palace, in order to give an account of what had passed to the sultan; who having heard the whole story, replied, “I have no mercy to show towards a Christian who kills a mussulman; go and do your duty.” At these words the judge of the police went back, and ordered a gibbet to be erected; and then sent some criers through the city to make known, that a Christian was going to be hanged for having killed a mussulman.

At last they took the merchant out of prison, and conducted him on foot to the gallows. The executioner having fastened the cord round the merchant’s neck, was just going to draw him up into the air, when the sultan’s purveyor, making his way through the crowd, approached the executioner, and called out, “Stop, stop, do not be in a hurry; it is not he who has committed the murder; I have done it.” The judge of the police, who attended the execution, immediately interrogated the purveyor, who gave him a long and minute detail of the manner in which he had killed the little hunchback; and he concluded by saying, that he had carried the body to the place where the Christian merchant had found it. “You are going,” added he, “to sacrifice an innocent person, since he could not kill a man that was not alive. It is enough for me to have slain a mussulman, without having to charge my conscience with the murder of a Christian, who is not criminal.”

When the purveyor of the sultan of Casgar had thus publicly accused himself of being the author of the hunchback’s death, the judge could not do otherwise than act with justice towards the merchant. “Let the Christian merchant go,” said he to the executioner, “and hang this man in his place, since it is evident, by his own confession, that he is the guilty person. The executioner immediately released the merchant, and put the rope round the neck of the purveyor; and at the very instant that he was going to complete the punishment, he heard the voice of the Jewish physician, who desired them to stop the execution that instant, that he might come and take his place at the foot of the gallows.

“Sir,” said he, as soon as he was come before the judge, “this mussulman, whom you are about to deprive of his life, does not deserve to die; I alone am the guilty wretch. About the middle of last night, a man and a woman, who are total strangers to me, came and knocked at my door, with a sick person, whom they brought with them: my servant went instantly to the door without waiting for a light, and having first received a piece of money from one of them, she came to me and said, that they wished I would come down and look at the sick person. While she was bringing me this message, they brought the patient up to the top of the stairs, and then disappeared. I went directly out, without waiting till my servant had lighted a candle; and meeting with the sick man in the dark, I gave him an unintentional kick, and he fell from the top to the bottom of the staircase. I then discovered that he was dead, and that he was a mussulman, and the very same little hunchback whose murderer you now wish to punish. My wife and myself took the body and carried it to the roof of our home, whence we let it down into that of our neighbour, the purveyor, whose life you are now going most unjustly to take away; as we were the persons who placed the body in his apartment, by lowering it down the chimney. When the purveyor discovered him, he took him for a thief, and treated him as such. He knocked him down, and believed he had killed him; but this is not the fact, as you may now be convinced by my confession. I alone am the author of the murder; and although it was unintentional, I am resolved to expiate my crime, and not charge my conscience with the death of two mussulmen, by suffering you to take away the life of the sultan’s purveyor, whose innocence I thus clearly prove to you. Dismiss him then, if you please, and put me in his place; since no one but myself was the cause of the hunchback’s death.

As soon as the judge was convinced that the Jewish physician was the true murderer, he ordered the executioner to take him, and set the purveyor at liberty. The cord was now placed round the neck of the physician, and he had hardly a moment to live, when the voice of the tailor was heard, who entreated the executioner not to proceed, while he made his way to the judge of the police, to whom, on his approach, he said, “You have been very near, sir, causing the death of three innocent persons; but if you will have the patience to listen to me, you shall be informed of the true murderer of the hunchback. If his death ought to be expiated by that of another person, mine is the one to be taken.

“As I was at work in my shop yesterday evening, a little before dark, and in a disposition well suited to enjoy any amusement, this little hunchback came up to it half drunk, and sat down. He immediately began to sing, and went on for some time, when I proposed to him to come and pass the evening at my house. He no sooner agreed to it, than I conducted him thither. We sat down to table almost directly, and I helped him to a little piece of fish; in eating of which a bone stuck fast in his throat, and in spite of every thing that my wife and I could do to relieve him, he died in a very short time. We were much afflicted at his death; and for fear of being taken up on account of it, we carried the body to the door of the Jewish physician. I knocked, and told the servant, who opened it, to go back to her master as soon as possible, and request him from us to come down, to see a patient, whom we had brought to him; and that he might not refuse coming, I charged her to put into his own hand a piece of money, which I gave her for that purpose. She was no sooner gone up, than I carried the little hunchback to the top of the stairs, and laid him on the first step: having done this, my wife and myself made the best of our way home. When the physician came out in order to go down, he stumbled against the hunchback, and rolled him down from the top to the bottom, which made him suppose he was the cause of his death. Since, however,” added he, “the case is as it is, let the physician go, and take my life instead of his.”

The judge of the police, and all the spectators, were filled with astonishment at the various strange events that the death of the little hunchback seemed to have given rise to. “Let the physician then depart,” said the judge, “and hang the tailor, since he confesses the crime. I must candidly own, that this adventure is a very extraordinary one, and is worthy of being written in letters of gold.” When the executioner had set the physician at liberty, he put the cord round the tailor’s neck.

While all this was passing, and the executioner was preparing to hang the tailor, the sultan of Casgar, who never passed any length of time without seeing the little hunchback, his buffoon, ordered him into his presence; when one of the attendants replied, “Little hunchback, sire, whom your majesty is so desirous to see, after having got drunk yesterday, escaped from the palace, contrary to his usual custom, in order to wander about the city; and this morning he was found dead. They have brought a man before the judge of the police, who was accused of his murder, and the judge immediately ordered a gibbet to be erected. At the very moment they were going to hang the accused person, another man came up to the gallows, and then a third, who each accused themselves, and declared the former to be innocent of the murder. All this took up some time, and the judge is at this moment in the very act of examining this third man, who says that he is the real murderer.”

On hearing this, the sultan of Casgar sent one of his attendants to the place of execution, “Go,” he cried, “with all possible speed, and tell the judge instantly to bring all the accused persons before me; and order them also to bring the body of poor little hunchback, whom I wish once more to see.” The officer instantly went, and arrived at the very moment that the executioner began to draw the cord, in order to hang the tailor. He called out to them as loud as he could to suspend the execution. As the hangman knew the officer, he durst not proceed, but let the tailor live. The officer, having now come up to the judge, declared the will of the sultan. The judge obeyed, and proceeded to the palace with the tailor, the Jew, the purveyor, and the Christian merchant, and ordered four of his people to carry the body of the hunchback.

As soon as they were come into the presence of the sultan, the judge prostrated himself at his feet; and when he got up, he gave a faithful and accurate detail of every thing that related to the adventure of little hunchback. The sultan thought it so very singular, that he commanded his own historian to write it down, with all its particulars: then addressing himself to those who were present, he said, “Have any one of you ever heard a more wonderful adventure than this, which is now happened to the hunchback, my buffoon?” The Christian merchant, having first prostrated himself so low at the sultan’s feet, that his head touched the ground, then spoke as follows: “Powerful monarch, I think I am acquainted with a still more surprising history than that which you have just heard recited; and if your majesty will grant me permission, I will relate it. The circumstances are of such a nature, that no person can hear them without being affected at the narrative.” The sultan having permitted him to speak, he began his story in these words: