The Four Hundred and Sixty-seventh Night,
Dunyazad said to her, "Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!" She replied, "With love and good will!" It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the Dog said to the Cat and the Mouse, "I will abide and await you here, and do ye twain fare into the Palace, where the Cat shall take her station upon the crenelles over the lattice window and the Mouse shall enter the mansion and roam about and search through the rooms until she come upon the Ring required." So they did the Dog's bidding and sought the places he had appointed to them and the Mouse crept about but found naught until she approached the bedstead and beheld the Jew asleep and the Princess lying afar off. He had been longsome in requiring of her her person and had even threatened her with slaughter, yet he had no power to approach her nor indeed had he even looked upon the form of her face. Withal the Mouse ceased not faring about until she approached the Jew, whom she discovered sleeping upon his back and drowned in slumber for the excess of his drink that weighed him down. So she drew near and considered him and saw the Ring in his mouth below his tongue whereat she was perplext how to recover it; but presently she went forth to a vessel of oil and dipping her tail therein approached the sleeper and drew it over his nostrils, whereat he sneezed with a sneeze so violent that the Ring sprang from between his jaws and fell upon the side of the bedstead. Then she seized it in huge joy and returning to the Cat said to her, "Verily the prosperity of our lord hath returned to him." After this the twain went back to the Dog whom they found expecting them, so they marched down to the sea and mounted upon his back and he swam with them both, all three being in the highest spirits. But when they reached the middle of the main, quoth the Cat to the Mouse, "Pass the Ring to me that I may carry it awhile;" and the other did so, when she placed it in her chops for an hour of time. Then quoth the Dog to them, "Ye twain have taken to yourselves charge of the Ring, each of you for a little time, and I also would do likewise." They both said to him, "O our brother, haply 'twill fall from thy mouth;" but said he to them, "By Allah, an ye give it not to me for a while I will drown you both in this very place." Accordingly the two did in their fear as the Dog desired and when he had set it in his chops it dropped therefrom into the abyss of the ocean; seeing which all repented thereat and they said, "Wasted is our work we have wrought." But when they came to land they found their lord sleeping from the excess of his cark and his care, and so the trio stood on the shore and were sorrowing with sore sorrow, when behold, there appeared to them a Fish strange of semblance who said to them, "Take ye this Signet-ring and commit it to your lord, the son of the Fisherman, and when giving it to him say, 'Since thou diddest a good deed and threwest the Fish into the sea thy kindness shall not be for naught; and, if it fail with the Creature, it shall not fail with Allah the Creator.' Then do ye inform him that the Fish which his father the Fisher would have presented to the King and whereupon he had mercy and returned her to the waters, that Fish am I, and the old saw saith, 'This for that, and tit for tat is its reward!'" Hereupon the Dog took the Signet-ring and the other two went up with him to their lord and awaking him from sleep returned to him his Ring. But when he saw it he became like one Jinn-mad from the excess of his joy and the three related to him the affair of the Signet; how they had brought it away from the Jew and how it had dropped from the Dog's mouth into the abyss of the sea and lastly how the Fish who had found it brought it back to them declaring that it was she whom his sire had netted and whom the son had returned to the depths. Cried he, "Alham-dolillah"?Glory be to the Lord?who caused us work this weal and requited us for our kindness;" after which he took the Signet and waited until night had nighted. Then he repaired to the mount which was under the Sultan's Palace and brought out the Ring and rubbed it, when the Slave appeared and cried to him, "Here I stand (and fair befal thy command!) between thy hands: what is it needest thou and requirest thou of me?" The other replied, "I demand that thou carry off for me this mound."?And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased to say her permitted say. Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, "How sweet is thy story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!" Quoth she, "And where is this compared with that I should relate to you on the coming night an the King suffer me to survive?" Now when it was the next night and that was