The Arabian Nights, Volume II of IV

by Unknown

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.”