The Four Hundred and Forty-fifth 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 quoth the
second Larrikin to the King:--O my lord, I cried out saying, "The
guests have slain the wife of my father." But when they heard me
the merchants arose and ran away, each following other, so I
rushed after them, shouting aloud, "Ye have killed my father's
wife," till such time as they had disappeared from sight. Then
said I to myself, "Inshallah! they will never more come back."
But after they had disappeared for a whole year they returned and
demanded their coin, to wit, six hundred reals; and I, when the
tidings reached me, feigned myself dead and ordered my father's
wife to bury me in the cemetery and I took to my grave a portion
of charcoal and a branding-iron. Now when the five merchants came
and asked after me the folk said, "He hath deceased and they have
graved him in his grave;" whereupon the creditors cried, "By
Allah, there is no help but that we go and piss upon his fosse."
Now I had made a crevice in the tomb[FN#347] and I had lighted
the charcoal and I had placed the branding-iron ready till it
became red hot and, when they came to piddle upon my grave, I
took the iron and branded their hinder cheeks with sore branding,
and this I did to one and all till the five had suffered in the
flesh. Presently they departed to their own country, when my
father's wife came and opened the tomb and drew me forth and we
returned together to our home. After a time, however, the news