paying aught either of her marriage settlement or of the contingent dowry.  At last the report of that Kazi’s avarice came to the ears of a damsel of Mosul-city, a model of beauty and loveliness who had insight into things hidden and just judgment and skilful contrivance.  Thereupon, resolved to avenge her sex, she left her native place and journeyed till she made Tarabulus; and by the decree of the Decreer at that very time the judge, after a day spent in his garden, purposed to return home so he mounted his mule and met her half-way between the pleasance and the town.  He chanced to glance at her and saw that she was wondrous beautiful and lovely, symmetrical and graceful and the spittle ran from his mouth wetting his mustachios; and he advanced and accosting her said, “O thou noble one, whence comest thou hither?” “From behind me!” “Connu.  I knew that; but from what city?” “From Mosul.”  “Art thou single and secluded or femme couverte with a husband alive?” “Single I am still!” “Can it be that thou wilt take me and thou become to me mate and I become to thee man?” “If such be our fate ’twill take place and I will give thee an answer to-morrow;” and so saying the damsel went on to Tarabulus.  Now the Kazi after hearing her speech felt his love for her increase; so next morning he sent to ask after her, and when they told him that she had alighted at a Khan, he despatched to her the negress his concubine with a party of friends to ask her in marriage, notifying that he was Kazi of the city.  Thereupon she demanded a dower of fifty dinars and naming a deputy caused the knot be knotted and she came to him about evening time and he went in to her.  But when it was the supper hour he called as was his wont to his black handmaiden saying “Fetch the fringed table-cloth,” and she fared forth and fetched it bringing also three biscuits and three onions, and as soon as the meal was served up all three sat down to it, the Kazi, the slave-girl, and the new bride.  Each took a biscuit and an onion and ate them up and the bride exclaimed “Allah requite thee with wealth.  By Allah, this be a wholesome supper.”  When the judge heard this he was delighted with her and cried out, “Extolled be the Almighty for that at last He hath vouchsafed to me a wife who thanketh the Lord for muchel or for little!” But he knew not what the Almighty had decreed to him through the wile and guile, the malice and mischief of women.  Next morning the Kazi repaired to the Mahkamah and the bride arose and solaced herself with looking at the apartments, of which some lay open whilst others were closed.  Presently she came to one which was made fast by a door with a wooden bolt and a padlock of iron:  she considered it and found it strong but at the threshold was a fissure about the breadth of a finger; so she peeped through and espied gold and silver coins heaped up in trays of brass which stood upon Kursi-stools and the nearest about ten cubits from the door.  She then arose and fetched a long