one after another, and cast them in, till they gave us my
mistress and I winked to my comrade. So we took her and carried
her out into mid-stream, where I gave her the empty
calabashes[FN#188] and said to her, "Wait for me at the mouth of
the canal." Then we cast her in, after we had loosed the jar of
sand from her neck and done off her fetters, and returned.

Now there remained one after her; so we took her and drowned her
and the eunuchs went away, whilst we dropped down the river with
the boat till we came to the mouth of the canal, where I saw my
mistress awaiting me. So we took her up into the boat and
returned to our pavilion on Er Rauzeh. Then I rewarded the
boatman and he took his boat and went away; whereupon quoth she
to me, "Thou art indeed a friend in need."[FN#189] And I abode
with her some days; but the shock wrought upon her so that she
sickened and fell to wasting away and redoubled in languishment
and weakness till she died. I mourned for her with an exceeding
mourning and buried her; after which I removed all that was in
the pavilion to my own house [and abandoned the former].

Now she had brought to the pavilion aforetime a little brass
coffer and laid it in a place whereof I knew not; so, when the
inspector of inheritances[FN#190] came, he searched the pavilion
and found the coffer, with the key in the lock. So he opened it
and finding it full of jewels and jacinths and earrings and
seal-rings and precious stones, such as are not found save with
kings and sultans, took it, and me with it, and ceased not to put
me to the question with beating and torment till I confessed to
them the whole affair from beginning to end, whereupon they
carried me to the Khalif and I told him all that had passed