When I saw that my discourse, instead of bringing her to her duty, served only to increase her rage, I gave over and retired.  She continued every day to visit her gallant, and for two long years gave herself up to excessive grief.

I went a second time to the Palace of Tears while she was there; I hid myself again, and heard her speak thus to her gallant:  It is now three years since you spoke one word to me; you return no answer to the marks of love I give you by my discourse and groans.  Is it from want of sense, or out of contempt?  O tomb! have you abated that excessive love he had for me?  Have you shut those eyes that showed me so much love, and were all my joy?  No, no, I believe nothing of it.  Tell me rather by what miracle you became intrusted with the rarest treasure that ever was in the world?

I must confess, my lord, I was enraged at these words; for, in short, this gallant so much doted upon, this adored mortal, was not such a one as you would imagine him to have been; he was a black Indian, a native of that country.  I say, I was so enraged at this discourse, that I discovered myself all of a sudden, and addressing the tomb in my turn, O tomb! cried I, why do you not swallow up that monster in nature, or rather why do you not swallow up the gallant and his mistress?

I had scarcely finished these words, when the queen, who sat by the black, rose up like a fury.  Ah, cruel man! says she, thou art the cause of my grief; do not you think but I know it.  I have dissembled it but too long; it is thy barbarous hand which hath brought the object of my love to this lamentable condition; and you are so hard-hearted as to come and insult a despairing lover.  Yes, said I, in a rage, it is I who chastized that monster according to his desert; I ought to have treated thee in the same manner; I repent now that I did not do it; thou hast abused my goodness too long.  As I spoke these words, I drew out my scimitar, and lifted up my hand to punish her; but she, steadfastly beholding me, said, with a jeering smile, Moderate thy anger.  At the same time she pronounced words I did not understand, and afterwards added, By virtue of my enchantments, I command thee immediately to become half marble and half man.  Immediately, my lord, I became such as you see me, already a dead man among the living, and a living man among the dead.  Here Scheherazade, perceiving day, broke off her story.

Upon which Dinarzade says, Dear sister, I am exceedingly obligated to the sultan, for it is to his goodness I owe the extraordinary pleasure I have in your stories.  My sister, replies the sultaness, if the sultan will be so good as to suffer me to live till to-morrow, I shall tell you a thing that will afford as much satisfaction as any thing you have yet heard.  Though Schahriar had not resolved to defer the death of Scheherazade a month longer, he could not have ordered her to be put to death that day.

The Twenty-fifth Night.