The chief justice, and all the spectators, could not sufficiently admire the strange emergencies that ensued upon the death of the little crooked gentleman.  Let the Jewish doctor go, said the judge, and hang up the tailor, since he confesses the crime.  It is certain this history is very uncommon, and deserves to be recorded in letters of gold.  The executioner having dismissed the doctor, made every thing ready to tie up the tailor.  While the executioner was making ready to hang up the tailor, the sultan of Casgar, wanting the company of his crooked jester, asked where he was.  One of his officers answered, The hunch-back, sir, whom you inquire after, got drunk last night, and, contrary to his custom, slipped out of the palace, went a sauntering into the city, and was this morning found dead.  A man was brought before the chief justice, and charged with the murder of him; but as he was going to be hanged, up came a man, and after him another, who took the charge upon themselves, and cleared each other.  The examination has continued a long while, and the judge is now interrogating a third man who avows himself the real author of the murder.

Upon this intelligence, the sultan of Casgar sent a hussar to the place of execution.  Go, said he to the messenger, make all the haste you can, bring the arraigned persons before me immediately, with the corpse of poor crump-back, that I may see him once more.  Accordingly the hussar went, and happened to arrive at the place of execution at the time when the executioner was going to tie up the tailor.  He cried aloud to the executioner to suspend the execution.  The hangman, knowing the hussar, did not dare to proceed, but untied the tailor; and then the hussar acquainted the judge with the sultan’s pleasure.  The judge obeyed, and went straight to the palace, accompanied by the tailor, the Jewish doctor, and the Christian merchant; causing four of his men to carry the hunch corpse along with him.  The judge, on appearing before the sultan, threw himself at the prince’s feet, and, after recovering himself, gave him a faithful relation of what he knew of the story of the crump-backed man.  The sultan found the story so uncommon, that he ordered his private historians to write it with all its circumstances.  Then addressing himself to the audience, Did you ever hear, said he, such a surprising story as has happened on account of my little crooked buffoon?  The Christian merchant then, after falling down, and saluting the earth with his forehead, spoke in the following manner:  Most puisant monarch, said he, I know a story even more astonishing than that you have now spoken off; and if your majesty will give me leave, I will tell it you.  The circumstances are such, that nobody can hear them without being moved.  Well, said the sultan, I give you leave; and the merchant went on as follows.

THE STORY TOLD BY THE CHRISTIAN MERCHANT.