Then the girl fell to rubbing it up and to toying therewith, her object being to stablish an erection.  But the article in question grew not and remained limp, whereupon she said, “O my lord, Allah increase the progress of thy pego!” Thereupon she arose and opened a bag wherefrom she drew out kerchiefs and dried aromatic herbs[FN#302] such as are scattered upon corpses; and she also brought a gugglet of water.  Presently she fell to washing the prickle as it were a dead body, and after bathing it she shrouded it with a kerchief:  then she cried upon her women and they all bewept the untimely fate of his yard which was still clothed in the kerchief.[FN#303] And when morning morrowed the Sultan sent after the man and summoned him and said to him, “How passed thy night?” So he told him all that had betided him, and concealed from him naught; and when the Sultan heard this account from him he laughed at him on such wise that from excess of merriment he well nigh fell upon his back and cried, “By Allah, if there be such cleverness in that girl, she becometh not any save myself.”  Accordingly he sent to fetch her as she stood and left the furniture of the place wholly and entirely to the owner of the fruit.  And when this was done the Sultan made of him a boon-companion for that day from morning to evening and whenever he thought of the handmaid’s doings he ordered the man to repeat the tale and he laughed at him and admired the action of the slave-girl with the Limpo.  When darkness came on they prayed the night-prayer and they supped and sat down to converse and to tell anecdotes.[FN#304] Thereupon the King said to him Fruiterer, “Relate us somewhat of that thou hast heard anent the Kings of old;” and said the other, “Hearing and obeying,” and forthwith began the

Story of the King of Al-Yaman and his Three Sons.

It is related that there was a Sultan in the land of Al-Yaman who had three male children, two of them by one mother and a third by another.  Now that King used to dislike this second wife and her son, so he sent her from him and made her, together with her child, consort with the handmaids of the kitchen, never asking after them for a while of time.  One day the two brothers-german went in to their sire and said to him, “’Tis the desire of us to go forth a-hunting and a-chasing,” whereto their father replied, “And have ye force enough for such sport?” They said, “Yea, verily, we have!” when he gave to each of them a horse with its furniture of saddle and bridle, and the twain rode off together.  But as soon as the third son (who together with his mother had been banished to the kitchen) heard that the other two had gone forth to hunt, he went to his mother and cried, “I also would fain mount and away to the chase like my brethren.”  His mother responded, saying, “O my son, indeed I am unable to buy thee a horse or aught of the kind;” so he wept before her and she brought him a silvern article, which he