the Kazi and witnesses who duly knotted the knot of wedlock and by eventide the glad tidings of the espousals were bruited abroad.  The King bade spread bride-feasts and banqueting tables and invited his high Officials and the Grandees of the kingdom and he went in to the maiden that very night and the rejoicings grew in gladness and all sorrows ceased to deal sadness.  Then he proclaimed through the capital and all the burghs that the lieges should decorate the streets with rare tapestries and multiform in honour of the Sultanate.  Accordingly, they adorned the thoroughfares in the city and its suburbs for forty days and the rejoicings increased when the King fed the widows and the Fakirs and the mesquin and scattered gold and robed and gifted and largessed till all the days of decoration were gone by.  On this wise the sky of his estate grew clear by the loyalty of the lieges and he gave orders to deal justice after the fashion of the older Sultans, to wit, the Chosroes and the Caesars; and this condition endured for three years, during which Almighty Allah blessed him by the Princess with two men-children as they were moons.  Such was the case with the youngest Princess; but as regards the cadette, the second sister,—­And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased saying her permitted say.  Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, “How sweet and tasteful is thy tale, O sister mine, and enjoyable and delectable!” Quoth she, “And where is this compared with that I would relate to you on the coming night an the Sovran suffer me to survive?” Now when it was the next night and that was

The Three Hundred and Seventy-fifth Night,

Dunyazad said to her, “Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!” She replied, “With love and good will!” It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that as regards the case of the cadette, the second damsel, when she was adopted to daughter by the ancient dame she fell to spinning with her and living by the work of their hands.  Now there chanced to govern that city a Basha[FN#178] who had sickened with a sore sickness till he was near unto death; and the wise men and leaches had compounded for him of medicines a mighty matter which, however, availed him naught.  At last the tidings came to the ears of the Princess who lived with the old woman and she said to her, “O my mother, I desire to prepare a tasse of broth and do thou bear it to the Basha and let him drink of it; haply will Almighty Allah vouchsafe him a cure whereby we shall gain some good.”  Said the other, “O my daughter, and how shall I obtain admittance and who shall set the broth before him?” The maiden replied, “O my mother, at the Gate of Allah Almighty!"[FN#179] and the dame rejoined, “Do thou whatso thou willest.”  So the damsel