crowded, behold, a man laid hold of the covering of the Ka'abah[FN#182] and cried out, from the bottom of his heart, saying, 'I beseech thee, O Allah, that she may once again be wroth with her husband and that I may know her!' A company of the pilgrims heard him and seized him and carried him to the Emir of the pilgrims, after a sufficiency of blows; and, said they, 'O Emir, we found this fellow in the Holy Places, saying thus and thus.' So the Emir commanded to hang him; but he cried, 'O Emir, I conjure thee, by the virtue of the Apostle (whom Allah bless and preserve!), hear my story and then do with me as thou wilt.' Quoth the Emir, 'Tell thy tale forthright.' 'Know then, O Emir,' quoth the man, 'that I am a sweep who works in the sheep- slaughterhouses and carries off the blood and the offal to the rubbish-heaps outside the gates. And it came to pass as I went along one day with my ass loaded, I saw the people running away and one of them said to me, 'Enter this alley, lest haply they slay thee.' Quoth I, 'What aileth the folk running away?' and one of the eunuchs, who were passing, said to me, 'This is the Harim[FN#183] of one of the notables and her eunuchs drive the people out of her way and beat them all, without respect to persons.' So I turned aside with the donkey'"--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
When it was the Two Hundred and Eighty-third Night,
