The Three Hundred and Ninetieth 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 when the Kazi went forth from his wife she threw a sherd[218] behind him and muttered, "Allah never bring thee back from thy journey." Then she arose and threw open the rooms and noted all that was in them of moneys and moveables and vaiselle and rarities, and she fell to feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and doling alms to Fakirs saying, "This be the reward of him who mortifieth the daughters of folk and devoureth their substance and shreddeth off their nostrils." She also sent to the women he had married and divorced, and gave them of his good the equivalent of their dowers and a solatium for losing their noses. And every day she assembled the goodwives of the quarter and cooked for them manifold kinds of food because her spouse the Kazi was possessed of property approaching two Khaznahs[219] of money, he being ever loath to expend what his hand could hend and unprepared to part with aught on any wise, for the excess of his niggardness and his greed of gain. Nor did she cease from so doing for a length of time until suddenly she overheard folk saying, "Our Kazi hath borne a babe." And such bruit spread abroad and was reported in sundry cities, nor ceased the rumour ere it reached the ears of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid in Baghdad city. Now hearing it he marvelled and cried, "Extolled be Allah! this hap, by the Lord, never can have happened save at the hand of some woman, a wise and a clever at contrivance; nor would she have wrought after such fashion save to make public somewhat erst proceeding from the Kazi, either his covetous intent or his high-handedness in commandment. But needs must this goodwife be summoned before me and recount the cunning practice she hath practiced;?Allah grant her success in the prank she hath played upon the Judge." Such was her case; but as concerns the Kazi, he abode working at builders' craft till his bodily force was enfeebled and his frame became frail; so presently quoth he to himself, "Do thou return to thy native land, for a long time hath now passed and this affair is clean forgotten." Thereupon he returned to Tarabulus, but as he drew near thereto he was met outside the city by a bevy of small boys who were playing at forfeits, and lo and behold! cried one to his comrades, "O lads, do ye remember such and such a year when our Kazi was brought to bed?"[220] But the Judge hearing these words returned forthright to Damascus by the way he came, saying to himself, "Hie thee not save to Baghdad city for 'tis further away than Damascus!" and set out at once for the House of Peace. However he entered it privily, because he was still in the employ of the Prince of True Believers, Harun al-Rashid; and, changing semblance and superficials, he donned the dress of a Persian Darwaysh and fell to walking about the streets of the capital. Here met he sundry men of high degree who showed him favour, but he could not venture himself before the Caliph albe sundry of the subjects said to him, "O Darwaysh, why dost thou not appear in the presence of the Commander of the Faithful? Assuredly he would bestow upon thee many a boon, for he is a true Sultan; and, specially, an thou panegyrise him in poetry, he will largely add to his largesse." Now by the decree of Destiny the viceregent of Allah upon His Earth had commanded the Kazi's wife be brought from Tarabulus: so they led her into the presence and when she had kissed ground before him and salam'd to him and prayed for the perpetuity of his glory and his existence, he asked her anent her husband and how he had borne a child and what was the prank she had played him and in what manner she had gotten the better of him. She hung her head groundwards awhile for shame nor could she return aught of reply for a time, when the Commander of the Faithful said to her, "Thou hast my promise of safety and again safety, the safety of one who betrayeth not his word." So she raised her head and cried, "By Allah, O King of the Age, the story of this Kazi is a strange"?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 would relate to you on the coming night an the Sovran suffer me to survive?" Now when it was the next night and that was