The Sultan asked him what was written on each one of the beads and how many stones were in the ring, and the merchant answered each question exactly, whereupon the Sultan sent him back to the Seven Towers.
On the following day he sent for Hojia.
He discoursed with him on all manner of juridical questions which had come before the Divan, and took the opinion of the learned lawyer upon them all. Amongst other cases, he suddenly put this one to him: a certain man had grossly abused the confidence of a friend, who had confided his property to his care while he was on his travels, and robbed him of everything; what did such a man deserve for such a monstrous act of treachery?
Now, it is notorious that the greatest sinners are the most rigorous judges of offences similar to their own in others, and it is even possible that it never occurred to Hojia that he himself had been guilty of a like offence. Besides, his sin was buried deeply away in the tomb of Muhzin, and nobody knew anything about it.
So the jurist replied to the Sultan that such an extraordinary offence demanded an extraordinary punishment, and the sinner deserved nothing less than pounding to death in a mortar.
"Thou hast pronounced thine own condemnation," cried the Sultan. Then he clapped his hands, and four Izoglans came running in and bound Hojia hand and foot, took from him his keys, searched his dwelling thoroughly, and found in it the whole of the treasure which had been confided to him by his friend the merchant.
The confounded Hojia, who fancied he was bathing in the sunlight of the highest favour, and never reflected that in the sunlight everything becomes transparent, in his terror confessed everything, and also said that he was the apparition who, after fastening on a beard smeared over with a phosphorescent unguent, had come to the room of the sorrowing Muhzin and practised on the unfortunate mourner the accursed trick which had well-nigh robbed him of life and reason. It was he, too, who had stolen the body of Eminha from its tomb.
The Sultan immediately summoned a meeting of the Divan, laid the case before the Viziers, and told them of the punishment which the Hojia himself had said that a crime like his deserved.
The Viziers answered that Hojia's opinion was just. The crime was indeed of a new sort, and it was right, therefore, that he should be the first to taste the proper punishment for it.
By the Sultan's command, therefore, a huge mortar was cut out of marble, a huge pounding pole with four handles thereto being at the same time made to match the mortar.