with her rival and to disport with her until it was thought that she loved none in the assembly save Heart’s-food; and on such wise she continued to cheer her and solace her and gambol with her and make her laugh until the trays were laid and the meats were dispread and all the guests came forward and fell to eating and drinking.  Thereupon the King’s cousin-wife brought a plate seasoned with Bhang and set it before the concubine who had no sooner eaten it and it had settled in her stomach than she trembled as with sudden palsy and fell to the ground without power of motion.  Then the Queen bade place her in a box and having locked her therein sent for one who was Skaykh of the Brokers and committed to him the coffer saying, “Do thou sell it for an hundred gold pieces whilst it is locked and fast locked and suffer not any open it, otherwise we will work for the cutting off of thy hands.”  He replied, “To hear is to obey;” and took up the box and went with it to the market-street where he said to the brokers, “Cry for sale this coffer at an hundred dinars and if any attempt to open it, open it not to any by any manner of means.”  So they took their station and made auction of it for an hundred gold pieces, when by the decree of Destiny the Bhang-eater passed down the street exulting in his hundred dinars which he had found in the crock while levelling the wall belonging to the woman.  Thereupon he came up and having paid the price required carried off his coffer saying in his mind, “My luck is my livelihood.”  After this he went to his own cell and opened it and found there the handmaid in condition as though drunken with wine.  Such is the history of that concubine Kut al-Kulub and she fell not into the hand of the Bhang-eater save by the wile and guile of the Sultan’s cousin-wife.  But when she recovered from her fainting fit and gazed around and understood what had befallen her she concealed her secret and said to the man, “Verily this thy cell becometh us not;” and, as she had somewhat of gold pieces with her and a collar of jewels around her neck worth a thousand dinars, she brought out for him some money and sent him forth to hire for them a house in the middle of the quarter beffiting great folk and when this was done she had herself transported thither.  Then she would give him every day spending-money to buy whatso she ever required and she would cook the delicatest dishes fit for the eating of the Kings wherewith she fed herself and her owner.  This continued for twenty days when suddenly the Sultan returned from his hunting party and as soon as he entered his palace he asked for Kut al-Kulub.—­And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased to say her permitted say.  Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, “How sweet is thy story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!” Quoth she, “And where is this compared with that I should relate to you on the coming night, an the Sovran suffer me to survive?” Now when it was the next night and that was