answered, “’Tis true that I was in the habit of whoredom, but now I have repented to Almighty Allah and have no more longing to this:  nay, I desire lawful wedlock; so, if he be content with that which is legal, I am between his hands."[FN#429] The old woman returned to the man and told him what the damsel said; and he lusted after her, because of her beauty and her penitence; so he took her to wife, and when he went in to her, he loved her and after like fashion she loved him.  Thus they abode a great while, till one day he questioned her of the cause of a scar[FN#430] he espied on her body, and she said, “I wot naught thereof save that my mother told me a marvellous thing concerning it.”  Asked he, “What was that?” and she answered, “My mother declared that she gave birth to me one night of the wintry nights and despatched a hired man, who was with us, in quest of fire for her.  He was absent a little while and presently returning, took me and slit my maw and fled.  When my mother saw this, chagrin seized her and compassion possessed her; so she sewed up my stomach and nursed me till the wound healed by the ordinance of Allah (to whom belong Might and Majesty).”  When her husband heard this, he said to her, “What is thy name and what may be the name of thy mother and who may be thy father?” She told him their names and her own, whereby he knew that it was she whose maw he had slit and said to her, “And where are thy father and mother?” “They are both dead.”  “I am that Hireling who slit thy stomach.”  “Why didst thou that?” “Because of a saying I heard from the wise woman.”  “What was it?” “She declared thou wouldst play the whore with an hundred men and that I after that should wed thee.”  “Ay, I have whored with an hundred men, no more and no less, and behold, thou hast married me.”  “The Divineress also foresaid that thou shouldst die, at the last of thy life, of the bite of a spider.  Indeed, her saying hath been verified of the fornication and the marriage, and I fear lest her word come true no less in the death.”  Then they betook themselves to a place without the city, where he builded him a mansion of solid stone and white stucco and stopped its inner walls and plastered them; leaving not therein or cranny or crevice, and he set in it two slavegirls whose services were sweeping and wiping, for fear of spiders.  Here he abode with his wife a great while, till one day the man espied a spider on the ceiling and beat it down.  When his wife saw it, she said, “This is that which the wise woman foresaid would slay me; so, by thy life, suffer me to kill it with mine own hand.”  Her husband forbade her from this, but she conjured him to let her destroy the spider; then, of her fearfulness and her eagerness, she took a piece of wood and smote it.  The wood brake of the force of the blow, and a splinter from it entered her hand and wrought upon it, so that it swelled.  Then her fore-arm also swelled and the swelling spread to her side and thence grew till it reached her heart and she died.  “Nor” (continued the Wazir), “is this stranger or more wondrous than the story of the Weaver who became a Leach by commandment of his wife.”  When the King heard this, his admiration redoubled and he said, “In very truth, Destiny is written to all creatures, and I will not accept aught that is said against my Minister the loyal counsellor.”  And he bade him hie to his home.