and hid it from the girl's father out of good will to me; nor did they cease to call to me and coax me, till they took me from where I was. After two months had passed by, her mother married her to a young man, a barber who used to shave her papa, and portioned and fitted her out of her own monies; whilst the father knew nothing of what had passed. On the night of consummation they cut the throat of a pigeon poult and sprinkled the blood on her shift.[FN#93] After a while they seized me unawares and gelded me; and, when they brought her to her bridegroom, they made me her Agha,[FN#94] her eunuch, to walk before her wheresoever she went, whether to the bath or to her father's house. I abode with her a long time enjoying her beauty and loveliness by way of kissing and clipping and coupling with her,[FN#95] till she died, and her husband and mother and father died also; when they seized me for the Royal Treasury as being the property of an intestate, and I found my way hither, where I became your comrade. This, then, O my brethren, is the cause of my cullions being cut off; and peace be with you! He ceased and his fellow began in these words the
Tale of the Second Eunuch, Kafur.
Know, O my brothers that, when beginning service as a boy of eight, I used to tell the slave dealers regularly and exactly one lie every year,