King of the Age, she sent to me not only once but five several times and I refrained from her and whatsoever eunuch she despatched I slew, saying, Haply she may cease so doing and abandon her evil intent.  But she did not repent, so I feared for thine honour and sent to acquaint thee with the matter.”  The Sultan bowed his head groundwards for a while, then raising it he bade summon the two Chamberlains whom he had sent to slay his wife and three children.  On their appearing he asked them, “What have you done in fulfilling my commandment?” They answered, “We did that which thou badest be done,” and showed him the four flasks they had filled with the blood and said, “This be their blood, a flask-full from each.”  The Sultan hent them in hand and mused over what had taken place between him and his wife of love and affection and union; so he wept with bitter weeping and fell down in a fainting fit.  After an hour or so he recovered and turning to the Wazir said, “Tell me, hast thou spoken sooth?” and the other replied, “Yes, I have.”  Then the Sultan addressed the two Chamberlains and asked them, “Have ye put to death my daughters with their mother?” But they remained silent nor made aught of answer or address.  So he exclaimed, “What is on your minds that ye speak not?” They rejoined, “By Allah, O King of the Age, the honest man cannot tell an untruth for that lying and leasing are the characteristics of hypocrites and traitors.”  When the Wazir heard the Chamberlains’ speech his colour yellowed, his frame was disordered and a trembling seized his limbs, and the King turned to him and noted that these symptoms had been caused by the words of the two officials.  So he continued to them, “What mean ye, O Chamberlains, by your saying that lies and leasing are the characteristics of hypocrites and traitors?  Can it be that ye have not put them to death?  And as ye claim to be true men either ye have killed them and ye speak thus or you are liars.  Now by Him who hath set me upon the necks of His lieges, if ye declare not to me the truth I will do you both die by the foulest of deaths.”  They rejoined, “By Allah, O King of the Age, whenas thou badest us take them and slay them, we obeyed thy bidding and they knew not nor could they divine what was to be until we arrived with them at the middlemost and broadest of the desert; and when we informed them of what had been done by the Wazir, thy Harem exclaimed, ’There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great.  Verily we are Allah’s and unto Him are we returning.  But an ye kill us you will kill us wrongfully and ye wot not wherefor.  By the Lord, this Wazir hath foully lied and hath accused us falsely before the Almighty.’  So we said to her, O King of the Age, ’Inform us of what really took place,’ and said the mother of the Princesses, ’Thus and thus it happened.’  Then she fell to telling us the whole tale from first to last of the nurse who was sent to her and the handmaids