by abc
A servant soon appeared, feeling her way down the dark staircase
and inquired what they wanted.
"Tell your master," said the tailor, "that we have brought a very sick
man for him to cure; and," he added, holding out some money, "give him
this in advance, so that he may not feel he is wasting his time."
The servant remounted the stairs to give the message to the doctor,
and the moment she was out of sight the tailor and his wife carried
the body swiftly after her, propped it up at the top of the staircase,
and ran home as fast as their legs could carry them.
Now the doctor was so delighted at the news of a patient (for he
was young, and had not many of them), that he was transported
with joy.
"Get a light," he called to the servant, "and follow me as fast as
you can!" and rushing out of his room he ran towards the staircase.
There he nearly fell over the body of the hunchback, and without knowing
what it was gave it such a kick that it rolled right to the bottom,
and very nearly dragged the doctor after it. "A light! a light!"
he cried again, and when it was brought and he saw what he had done
he was almost beside himself with terror.
"Holy Moses!" he exclaimed, "why did I not wait for the light?
I have killed the sick man whom they brought me; and if the sacred
Ass of Esdras does not come to my aid I am lost! It will not be long
before I am led to jail as a murderer."
Agitated though he was, and with reason, the doctor did not forget
to shut the house door, lest some passers-by might chance to see
what had happened. He then took up the corpse and carried it
into his wife's room, nearly driving her crazy with fright.
"It is all over with us!" she wailed, "if we cannot find some
means of getting the body out of the house. Once let the sun
rise and we can hide it no longer! How were you driven to commit
such a terrible crime?"
"Never mind that," returned the doctor, "the thing is to find a way
out of it."
For a long while the doctor and his wife continued to turn over
in their minds a way of escape, but could not find any that seemed
good enough. At last the doctor gave it up altogether and resigned
himself to bear the penalty of his misfortune.
But his wife, who had twice his brains, suddenly exclaimed, "I have
thought of something! Let us carry the body on the roof of the house
and lower it down the chimney of our neighbour the Mussulman."
Now this Mussulman was employed by the Sultan, and furnished
his table with oil and butter. Part of his house was occupied
by a great storeroom, where rats and mice held high revel.
The doctor jumped at his wife's plan, and they took up the hunchback,
and passing cords under his armpits they let him down into the
purveyor's bed-room so gently that he really seemed to be leaning
against the wall. When they felt he was touching the ground they
drew up the cords and left him.
Scarcely had they got back to their own house when the purveyor
entered his room. He had spent the evening at a wedding feast,
and had a lantern in his hand. In the dim light it cast he was
astonished to see a man standing in his chimney, but being naturally
courageous he seized a stick and made straight for the supposed thief.
"Ah!" he cried, "so it is you, and not the rats and mice, who steal
my butter. I'll take care that you don't want to come back!"
So saying he struck him several hard blows. The corpse fell on
the floor, but the man only redoubled his blows, till at length it
occurred to him it was odd that the thief should lie so still and make
no resistance. Then, finding he was quite dead, a cold fear took
possession of him. "Wretch that I am," said he, "I have murdered
a man. Ah, my revenge has gone too far. Without tho help of Allah
I am undone! Cursed be the goods which have led me to my ruin."
And already he felt the rope round his neck.
But when he had got over the first shock he began to think of some
way out of the difficulty, and seizing the hunchback in his arms he
carried him out into the street, and leaning him against the wall
of a shop he stole back to his own house, without once looking
behind him.
A few minutes before the sun rose, a rich Christian merchant,
who supplied the palace with all sorts of necessaries, left his house,
after a night of feasting, to go to the bath. Though he was
very drunk, he was yet sober enough to know that the dawn was at hand,
and that all good Mussulmen would shortly be going to prayer.
So he hastened his steps lest he should meet some one on his way
to the mosque, who, seeing his condition, would send him to prison
as a drunkard. In his haste he jostled against the hunchback,
who fell heavily upon him, and the merchant, thinking he was being
attacked by a thief, knocked him down with one blow of his fist.
He then called loudly for help, beating the fallen man all
the while.
The chief policeman of the quarter came running up, and found
a Christian ill-treating a Mussulman. "What are you doing?"
he asked indignantly.
"He tried to rob me," replied the merchant, "and very nearly
choked me."
"Well, you have had your revenge," said the man, catching hold
of his arm. "Come, be off with you!"
As he spoke he held out his hand to the hunchback to help him up,
but the hunchback never moved. "Oho!" he went on, looking closer,
"so this is the way a Christian has the impudence to treat
a Mussulman!" and seizing the merchant in a firm grasp he took
him to the inspector of police, who threw him into prison till
the judge should be out of bed and ready to attend to his case.
All this brought the merchant to his senses, but the more he thought
of it the less he could understand how the hunchback could have died
merely from the blows he had received.
The merchant was still pondering on this subject when he was
summoned before the chief of police and questioned about his crime,
which he could not deny. As the hunchback was one of the Sultan's
private jesters, the chief of police resolved to defer sentence
of death until he had consulted his master. He went to the palace
to demand an audience, and told his story to the Sultan, who only answered,
"There is no pardon for a Christian who kills a Mussulman.
Do your duty."
So the chief of police ordered a gallows to be erected, and sent
criers to proclaim in every street in the city that a Christian
was to be hanged that day for having killed a Mussulman.
When all was ready the merchant was brought from prison and led
to the foot of the gallows. The executioner knotted the cord firmly
round the unfortunate man's neck and was just about to swing him
into the air, when the Sultan's purveyor dashed through the crowd,
and cried, panting, to the hangman,
"Stop, stop, don't be in such a hurry. It was not he who did
the murder, it was I."
The chief of police, who was present to see that everything was
whole story of the death of the hunchback, and how he had carried
the body to the place where it had been found by the Christian merchant.
"You are going," he said to the chief of police, "to kill an
innocent man, for it is impossible that he should have murdered
a creature who was dead already. It is bad enough for me
to have slain a Mussulman without having it on my conscience
that a Christian who is guiltless should suffer through my fault."
Now the purveyor's speech had been made in a loud voice, and was
heard by all the crowd, and even if he had wished it, the chief
of police could not have escaped setting the merchant free.
"Loose the cords from the Christian's neck," he commanded,
turning to the executioner, "and hang this man in his place,
seeing that by his own confession he is the murderer."
The hangman did as he was bid, and was tying the cord firmly,
when he was stopped by the voice of the Jewish doctor beseeching
him to pause, for he had something very important to say.
When he had fought his way through the crowd and reached the chief
of police,
"Worshipful sir," he began, "this Mussulman whom you desire
to hang is unworthy of death; I alone am guilty. Last night
a man and a woman who were strangers to me knocked at my door,
bringing with them a patient for me to cure. The servant opened it,
but having no light was hardly able to make out their faces,
though she readily agreed to wake me and to hand me the fee for
my services. While she was telling me her story they seem to have
carried the sick man to the top of the staircase and then left
him there. I jumped up in a hurry without waiting for a lantern,
and in the darkness I fell against something, which tumbled headlong
down the stairs and never stopped till it reached the bottom.
When I examined the body I found it was quite dead, and the corpse
was that of a hunchback Mussulman. Terrified at what we had done,
my wife and I took the body on the roof and let it down the chimney
of our neighbour the purveyor, whom you were just about to hang.
The purveyor, finding him in his room, naturally thought he was a thief,
and struck him such a blow that the man fell down and lay motionless
on the floor. Stooping to examine him, and finding him stone dead,
the purveyor supposed that the man had died from the blow he
had received; but of course this was a mistake, as you will see from
my account, and I only am the murderer; and although I am innocent
of any wish to commit a crime, I must suffer for it all the same,
or else have the blood of two Musselmans on my conscience.
Therefore send away this man, I pray you, and let me take his place,
as it is I who am guilty."
On hearing the declaration of the Jewish doctor, the chief of police
commanded that he should be led to the gallows, and the Sultan's
purveyor go free. The cord was placed round the Jew's neck,
and his feet had already ceased to touch the ground when the voice
of the tailor was heard beseeching the executioner to pause one
moment and to listen to what he had to say.
"Oh, my lord," he cried, turning to the chief of police,
"how nearly have you caused the death of three innocent people!
But if you will only have the patience to listen to my tale,
you shall know who is the real culprit. If some one has to suffer,
it must be me! Yesterday, at dusk, I was working in my shop with a
light heart when the little hunchback, who was more than half drunk,
came and sat in the doorway. He sang me several songs, and then
I invited him to finish the evening at my house. He accepted
my invitation, and we went away together. At supper I helped him
to a slice of fish, but in eating it a bone stuck in his throat,
and in spite of all we could do he died in a few minutes. We felt deeply
sorry for his death, but fearing lest we should be held responsible,
we carried the corpse to the house of the Jewish doctor. I knocked,
and desired the servant to beg her master to come down as fast
as possible and see a sick man whom we had brought for him to cure;
and in order to hasten his movements I placed a piece of money
in her hand as the doctor's fee. Directly she had disappeared I
dragged the body to the top of the stairs, and then hurried away
with my wife back to our house. In descending the stairs the doctor
accidentally knocked over the corpse, and finding him dead believed
that he himself was the murderer. But now you know the truth set
him free, and let me die in his stead."
The chief of police and the crowd of spectators were lost in astonishment
at the strange events to which the death of the hunchback had given rise.
"Loosen the Jewish doctor," said he to the hangman, "and string up
the tailor instead, since he has made confession of his crime.
Really, one cannot deny that this is a very singular story,
and it deserves to be written in letters of gold."
The executioner speedily untied the knots which confined the doctor,
and was passing the cord round the neck of the tailor, when the
Sultan of Kashgar, who had missed his jester, happened to make
inquiry of his officers as to what had become of him.
"Sire," replied they, "the hunchback having drunk more than was
good for him, escaped from the palace and was seen wandering about
the town, where this morning he was found dead. A man was arrested
for having caused his death, and held in custody till a gallows
was erected. At the moment that he was about to suffer punishment,
first one man arrived, and then another, each accusing themselves
of the murder, and this went on for a long time, and at the
present instant the chief of police is engaged in questioning
a man who declares that he alone is the true assassin."
The Sultan of Kashgar no sooner heard these words than he ordered
an usher to go to the chief of police and to bring all the persons
concerned in the hunchback's death, together with the corpse,
that he wished to see once again. The usher hastened on his errand,
but was only just in time, for the tailor was positively swinging
in the air, when his voice fell upon the silence of the crowd,
commanding the hangman to cut down the body. The hangman,
recognising the usher as one of the king's servants, cut down
the tailor, and the usher, seeing the man was safe, sought the chief
of police and gave him the Sultan's message. Accordingly, the chief
of police at once set out for the palace, taking with him the tailor,
the doctor, the purveyor, and the merchant, who bore the dead
hunchback on their shoulders.
When the procession reached the palace the chief of police prostrated
himself at the feet of the Sultan, and related all that he knew of
the matter. The Sultan was so much struck by the circumstances that he
ordered his private historian to write down an exact account of what
had passed, so that in the years to come the miraculous escape of the
four men who had thought them
selves murderers might never be forgotten.
The Sultan asked everybody concerned in the hunchback's affair
to tell him their stories. Among others was a prating barber,
whose tale of one of his brothers follows.
Story of the Barber's Fifth Brother
As long as our father lived Alnaschar was very idle. Instead of working
for his bread he was not ashamed to ask for it every evening, and to
support himself next day on what he had received the night before.
When our father died, worn out by age, he only left seven hundred
silver drachmas to be divided amongst us, which made one hundred
for each son. Alnaschar, who had never possessed so much money
in his life, was quite puzzled to know what to do with it.
After reflecting upon the matter for some time he decided to lay it
out on glasses, bottles, and things of that sort, which he would
buy from a wholesale merchant. Having bought his stock he next
proceeded to look out for a small shop in a good position, where he
sat down at the open door, his wares being piled up in an uncovered
basket in front of him, waiting for a customer among the passers-by.
In this attitude he remained seated, his eyes fixed on the basket,
but his thoughts far away. Unknown to himself he began to talk
out loud, and a tailor, whose shop was next door to his, heard quite
plainly what he was saying.
"This basket," said Alnaschar to himself, "has cost me a hundred drachmas--
all that I possess in the world. Now in selling the contents
piece by piece I shall turn two hundred, and these hundreds I
shall again lay out in glass, which will produce four hundred.
By this means I shall in course of time make four thousand drachmas,
which will easily double themselves. When I have got ten thousand I
will give up the glass trade and become a jeweller, and devote all