"I shall be most delighted to hear you relate it," said his guest. "I have been greatly entertained by your vivid way of describing the adventures through which you have passed. You deserve to be classed amongst the great heroes of old, who have made their names famous by their deeds of daring. Go on, I pray you, and tell me the particulars of this unusual experience."
"Well," proceeded the man, "I had very carefully planned to pay a visit to a certain house just outside the walls of the city. It was an easy one to get in to without any danger of being observed, for it was in a quiet street, where passers-by are very few after dark. It was a gloomy place after sunset, for the high walls that looked down upon it threw deep and heavy shadows, which faint-hearted people declare are really unhappy and restless ghosts prowling about to harass and distress the unwary.
"It was a little after midnight, when with stealthy footsteps I crept along the narrow streets, keeping as much as I could under cover of the houses, where the darkness lay deepest. Every home was hushed in slumber. The only things that really troubled me were the dogs, which, with an intelligence far greater than that of their masters, suspected me of some evil purpose, and barked at me and made wild snaps at my legs. I managed, however, to evade them and finally to arrive at the house I intended to rob.
"When I got close up to it, I was surprised to find a light burning inside. There was another thing, too, that I could not understand, and this was that a little side door by which I had planned to enter had not been bolted, but had been left ajar so that any prowling robber could easily gain admittance through it. Taking off my shoes, I walked on tiptoe along the stone-paved courtyard in the direction of the room where the light was burning, and hiding myself just outside the window, I could observe everything without being seen myself.
"I saw a woman of about thirty sitting alone by a table. She was evidently annoyed about something, for a frown rested on her face, and her eyes now and again flashed with suppressed anger, as though she had suffered some great wrong and wished to avenge it. I was just beginning to wonder when I should be able to attend to my own particular business, when I heard the side door slam, and the heavy staggering footsteps of a person under the influence of sam-shu sounded in the dark.
"I drew back a little further from the window. A man approached the room where the woman was sitting; lurching heavily, he sent the door open with a bang, fell down on the floor, and lay there perfectly insensible. He was a little insignificant fellow, whilst his wife was a vigorous, strapping woman. Looking at him with a world of contempt in her eyes, she came and picked him up and laid him on a bed that stood in the corner of the room.
"She then went back to her seat, but there was an evil look in the glances that she kept casting at her wretched husband. I was wondering to myself what was to be the end of this curious scene, when I saw her get up and go to a kind of wardrobe and take out a needle some two or three inches in length. She then undid her husband's dress, and seizing a mallet that lay on the table, she drove the needle deep down into his navel until it had entirely vanished in the flesh and not a trace of it was to be seen.
"The drunken man screamed as though in great agony, tossed convulsively on the bed, and then lay still and moved no more.
"I was so paralyzed with fear lest I should be implicated in this murder, that I dashed out of the house with all the speed I could command in the dark, and without stopping my flight for a single moment, I reached my home, terrified beyond measure at the awful scene that I had just witnessed.
"The only amusing part about the whole business was the inquest which was held the other day upon the body of the dead husband. I was present, and laughed in my sleeve at the whole proceedings. There was the Coroner, with solemn face, going through all the regular rules of examining the body for some proof that the man had been murdered. Then there was the county magistrate, questioning and threatening the woman as to the part she had played in the tragedy. And then, too, there was the wife, with sobs and sighs, and with tears running down her face, calling Heaven to witness that she had had nothing to do with the death of her husband. It was a splendid farce, carried out with wonderful acting by the wife, for there was not a flaw in her evidence, and no sign on the body to convict her of her crime.