night and that was

The Three Hundred and Eighty-ninth Night,

Dunyazad said to her, "Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be
other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short
the watching of this our latter night!" She replied, "With love
and good will!" It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the
director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting
and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the Kazi's
wife came up to him and passing her palm over his paunch
presently cried, "Extolled be He, O my lord: verily thou art
pregnant and a babe is in thy belly." Quoth the Kazi, "How shall
a man bear a child?" and quoth she, "Allah createth whatso He
willeth." And as they two sat at talk the flatulence and belly-
ache increased and violent colic[FN#214] set in and the torments
waxed still more torturing. Then the wife rose up and disappeared
but presently she returned with her pauper neighbour's newly-born
babe in her sleeve, its mother accompanying it: she also brought
a large basin of copper and she found her husband rolling from
right to left and crying aloud in his agony. At last the
qualms[FN#215] in his stomach were ready to burst forth and the
rich food to issue from his body, and when this delivery was near
hand the wife privily set the basin under him like a close stool
and fell to calling upon the Holy Names and to shampooing and
rubbing down his skin while she ejaculated, "The name of Allah be
upon thee!"[FN#216] But all this was of her malice. At last the
prima via opened and the Kazi let fly, whereat his wife came
quickly behind and setting the babe upon its back gently pinched
it so that it began to wail, and said, "O man, Alhamdolillah,--