sword which whistled and glittered in the air and was about to strike, when a cry from behind, Stop thy hand! was heard, and it was the voice of the Wazir Ja’afar who was out on a promenade.  The Wali went to him and kissed the earth before him and the Wazir said to him, What is this great gathering here?  He answered, ’Tis the execution of a young man of Damascus whom we found yesterday in a ruin; he had killed a lad of noble blood and we found the knife with him and his clothes spotted with blood.  When I said to him, Is it thou that killedst him? he replied Yes three times.  To-day I sent to thee my written report and thine Excellency ordered his death, saying, Let the sentence of God be executed, and now I have brought him out that his neck may be struck.  Ja’afar said, Oh, hath a man of Damascus come into our country to find himself in a bad condition?  Wallahy, that shall never be!  Then he ordered that he should be brought to him.  The Wazir did not recognise him, for Attaf’s air of ease and comfort had disappeared; so Ja’afar said to him, From what country art thou, O young man, and he answered, I am a man from Damascus.  From the city or from the villages?  Wallahy, O my lord, from Damascus city where I was born.  Ja’afar asked, Didst thou happen to known there a man named Attaf?  I know when thou wast his friend and he lodged thee in such-and-such a house and thou wentest out to such-and-such a garden; and I know when thou didst marry his cousin-wife, I know when he bade adieu to thee at Katifa where thou drankest with him.  Ja’afar said, Yes, all that is true, but what became of him after he left me?  He said, O my Lord, there happened to him this and that and he related to him everything from the time he quitted him up to the moment of his standing before him and then recited these verses:—­

This age, must it make me its victim, and thou at the same time art living: 
     wolves are seeking to devour me while thou the lion art here. 
Every thirsty one that cometh his thirst is quenched by thee:  can it be that I
     thirst while thou art still our refuge?

When he had finished the verses he said, O my lord, I am Attaf, and then recalled all that had taken place between them from first to last.  While he was thus speaking a great cry was heard, and it came from a Sheikh who was saying, This is not humanity.  They looked at the speaker, who was an old man with trimmed beard dyed with henna, and upon him was a blue kerchief.  When Ja’afar saw him he asked him what was the matter, and he exclaimed, Take away the young man from under the sword, for there is no fault in him:  he hath killed no one nor doth he know anything of the dead youth.  Nobody but myself is the killer.  The Wazir said, Then ’tis thou that killed him? and he answered.  Yes.—­Why didst thou kill him? hast thou not the fear of God in killing a Hashimy child?  The old man said, He was my servant, serving me in the house and working with me at my trade.  Every