Lo, the jackals are defiling her grave.  Mashalla! he has no godmother.”  And they sought out Panik, the swift-footed messenger, and bade him shout through the bazaars that the godmother of Prince BADFELLAH was dead.  When he heard this, the prince fell upon his face, and rent his garments, and covered himself with the dust of the market-place.  As he was sitting thus, a porter passed him with jars of wine on his shoulders, and the prince begged him to give him a jar, for he was exceeding thirsty and faint.  But the porter said, “What will my lord give me first?” And the prince, in very bitterness of spirit, said, “Take this,” and handed him his STOKH, and so exchanged it for a jar of wine.

Now the Prince BULLEBOYE was of a very different disposition.  When he received the message of SOOPAH INTENDENT he bowed his head, and said, “It is the will of God.”  Then he rose; and without speaking a word entered the gates of his palace.  But his wife, the peerless Maree JAHANN, perceiving the gravity of his countenance, said, “Why is my lord cast down and silent?  Why are those rare and priceless pearls, his words, shut up so tightly between those gorgeous oyster-shells, his lips?” But to this he made no reply.  Thinking further to divert him, she brought her lute into the chamber and stood before him, and sang the song and danced the dance of Ben KOTTON, which is called IBRAHIM’s daughter, but she could not lift the veil of sadness from his brow.

When she had ceased, the Prince BULLEBOYE arose and said, “Allah is great, and what am I, his servant, but the dust of the earth!  Lo, this day has my godmother sickened unto death, and my STOKH become as a withered palm-leaf.  Call hither my servants and camel-drivers, and the merchants that have furnished me with stuffs, and the beggars who have feasted at my table, and bid them take all that is here, for it is mine no longer!” With these words he buried his face in his mantle and wept aloud.

But Maree JAHANN, his wife, plucked him by the sleeve.  “Prithee, my lord,” said she, “bethink thee of the BROKAH or scrivener, who besought thee but yesterday to share thy STOKH with him and gave thee his bond for fifty thousand sequins.”  But the noble Prince BULLEBOYE, raising his head, said:  “Shall I sell to him for fifty thousand sequins that which I know is not worth a Soo Markee?  For is not all the BROKAH’S wealth, even his wife and children, pledged on that bond?  Shall I ruin him to save myself?  Allah forbid!  Rather let me eat the salt fish of honest penury, than the kibobs of dishonorable affluence; rather let me wallow in the mire of virtuous oblivion, than repose on the divan of luxurious wickedness.”