on the mean and miserable, also on the widows and orphans, when
his fame was bruited abroad and it dispread far and wide till men
entitled him the "Just Wazir" and in such case he governed for a
while of time.--And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day
and fell silent and ceased saying her permitted say. Then quoth
her sister Dunyazad, "How sweet and tasteful is thy tale, O
sister mine, and enjoyable and delectable!" Quoth she, "And where
is this compared with that I would relate to you on the coming
night an the Sovran suffer me to survive?" Now when it was the
next night and that was

The Four Hundred and Tenth 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 Wazir
governed for a while of time with all justice of rule so that the
caravans spread abroad the name and fame of him throughout every
city and all the countries. Presently there befel him an affair
between two women which were sister-wives to one man.[FN#278] Now
these had conceived by him in the same month and when the time of
their pregnancy had passed, the twain were delivered in the same
place at the same hour and the midwife was one and the same. One
brought forth a babe but it was a daughter which incontinently
died and the other a man-child who lived. The women quarrelled
and fought about the boy-babe and both of them said, "This is my
child;" and there befel between them exceeding contention and