and crying aloud and weeping exceeding sore weeping. The first to
address my owner were his wife and children; and when he saw them
he was confounded and laughed[FN#98] and said to them, "How is it
with all of you and what befel you in the house and what hath
come to pass to you?" When they saw him they exclaimed, "Praise
be to Allah for thy preservation!" and threw themselves upon him
and his children hung about him crying, "Slack, our father!
Thanks to Allah for thy safety, O our father!" And his wife said
to him, "Art thou indeed well! Laud to Allah who hath shown us
thy face in safety!" And indeed she was confounded and her reason
fled when she saw him, and she asked, "O, my lord, how didst thou
escape, thou and thy friends the merchants?"; and he answered
her, "And how fared it with thee in the house?" Quoth they, "We
were all well, whole and healthy, nor hath aught of evil befallen
us in the house, save that thy slave Kafur came to us, bareheaded
with torn garments and howling, 'Alas, the master! Alas the
master!' So we asked him, 'What tidings, O Kafur?' and he
answered 'A wall of the garden hath fallen on my master and his
friends the merchants, and they are all crushed and dead!''' "By
Allah," said my master, "he came to me but now howling, 'Alas, my
mistress! Alas, the children of the mistress!', and said, 'My
mistress and her children are all dead, every one of them!'" Then
he looked round and seeing me with my turband rent in rags round
my neck, howling and weeping with exceeding weeping and throwing
dust upon my head, he cried out at me. So I came to him and he
said, "Woe to thee, O ill omened slave! O whoreson knave! O thou
damned breed! What mischief thou hast wrought? By Allah! I will
flog thy skin from thy flesh and cut thy flesh from thy bones!" I
rejoined, "By Allah, thou canst do nothing of the kind with me, O
my lord, for thou boughtest me with my blemish; and there are