her enemies who had all been afflicted alike, so Allah (extolled and exalted be He!) might show forth her innocence upon the heads of witnesses.[FN#424] Then she turned to the old man who had delivered her from the pit and prayed for him and gave him presents manifold and among them a myriad, a Badrah;[FN#425] and the sick made whole departed from her.  When she was alone with her husband, she made him draw near unto her and rejoiced in his arrival, and gave him the choice of abiding with her.  Presently, she assembled the citizens and notified to them his virtue and worth and counselled them to invest him with management of their rule and besought them to make him king over them.  They consented to her on this and he became king and made his home amongst them, whilst she gave herself up to her orisons and cohabited with her husband as she was with him aforetime.  “Nor,” continued the Wazir, “is this tale, O king of the time, stranger or pleasanter than that of the Hireling and the Girl whose maw he slit and fled.”  When King Shah Bakht heard this, he said, “Most like all they say of the Minister is leasing, and his innocence will be made manifest even as that of the Devotee was manifested.”  Then he comforted the Wazir’s heart and bade him hie to his house.

The Nineteenth Night of the Month.

When the evening evened, the King bade fetch the Wazir and sought of him the story of the Hireling and the Girl.  So he said, “Hearkening and obedience.  Give ear, O auspicious King, to

The Tale of the Hireling and the Girl.

There was once, of old time, in one of the tribes of the Arabs, a woman pregnant by her husband, and they had a hired servant, a man of insight and understanding.  When the woman came to her delivery-time, she gave birth to a girl-child in the night and they sought fire of the neighbours.[FN#426] So the Hireling went in quest of fire.  Now there was in the camp a Divineress,[FN#427] and she questioned him of the new-born child, an it was male or female.  Quoth he, “’Tis a girl;” and quoth she, “That girl will whore with an hundred men and a hireling shall wed her and a spider shall slay her.”  When the hired man heard this, he returned upon his steps and going in to the woman, took the child from her by wily management and slit its maw:  then he fled forth into the wold at hap-hazard and abode in strangerhood while Allah so willed.[FN#428] He gained much money; and, returning to his own land, after twenty years’ absence, alighted in the neighbourhood of an old woman, whom he wheedled and treated with liberality, requiring of her a young person whom he might enjoy without marriage.  Said she, “I know none but a certain fair woman, who is renowned for this industry.”  Then she described her charms to him and made him lust after her, and he said, “Hasten to her this minute and lavish upon her whatso she asketh.”  So the crone betook herself to the girl and discovered his wishes to her and invited her to him; but she