my room, and throwing myself upon our bed feigned sleep.  Presently Aminah came and doffing her dress calmly lay beside me, and I knew by her manner that she had not seen me at all, nor guessed that I had followed her to the cemetery.  This gave me great relief of mind, withal I loathed to bed beside a cannibal and a corpse-eater; howbeit I lay still despite extreme misliking till the Muezzin’s call for dawn-prayers, when getting up I busied myself with the Wuzu-ablution and set forth mosque-wards.  Then having said my prayers and fulfilled my ceremonial duties,[FN#263] I strolled about the gardens, and during this walk having turned over the matter in my mind, determined that it behoved me to remove my bride from such ill companionship, and wean her from the habit of devouring dead bodies.  With these thoughts I came back home at dinner-time, when Aminah on seeing me return bade the servants serve up the noontide meal and we twain sat at table; but as before she fell to picking up the rice grain by grain.  Thereat said I to her, “O my wife, it irketh me much to see thee picking up each grain of rice like a hen.  If this dish suit not thy taste see there are, by Allah’s grace and the Almighty’s favour, all kinds of meats before us.  Do thou eat of that which pleaseth thee most; each day the table is bespread with dishes of different kinds and if these please thee not, thou hast only to order whatsoever food thy soul desireth.  Yet I would ask of thee one question:  Is there no meat upon the table as rich and toothsome as man’s flesh, that thou refuseth every dish they set before thee?” Ere I had finished speaking my wife became assured that I was aware of her night adventure:  she suddenly waxed wroth with exceeding wrath, her face flushed red as fire, her eyeballs started out from their sockets and she foamed at the mouth with ungovernable fury.  Seeing her in this mood I was terrified and my sense and reason fled by reason of my affright; but presently in the madness of her passion she took up a tasse of water which stood beside her and dipping her fingers in the contents muttered some words which I could not understand; then sprinkling some drops over me, cried, Accursed that thou art! for this thine insolence and betrayal do thou be straightway turned into a dog.”  At once I became transmewed and she, picking up a staff began to ribroast me right mercilessly and well nigh killed me.  I ran about from room to room but she pursued me with the stick, and tunded and belaboured me with might and main, till she was clean exhausted.  She then threw the street-door half open and, as I made for it to save my life, attempted violently to close it, so as to squeeze my soul out of my body; but I saw her design and baffled it, leaving behind me, however, the tip of my tail; and piteously yelping hereat I escaped further basting and thought myself lucky to get away from her without broken bones.  When I stood in the street still whining and ailing, the dogs of the quarter seeing a stranger, at once came rushing at me barking and biting;[FN#264] and I with tail between my legs tore along the market place and ran into the shop of one who sold sheeps’ and goats’ heads and trotters; and there crouching low hid me in a dark corner.—­And as the morn began to dawn Shahrazad held her peace till