The disconsolate Buddir ad Deen did not cease his lamentations; and when the stake was brought, cried out bitterly at the horrid sight.  “Heaven!” said he, “can you suffer me to die an ignominious and painful death?  And all this, for what crime? not for robbery or murder, or renouncing my religion, but for not putting pepper in a cream tart,”

Night being then pretty far advanced, the vizier ordered Buddir ad Deen to be conveyed again to his cage, saying to him, “Stay there till to-morrow; the day shall not elapse before I give orders for your death.”  The chest or cage then was carried away and laid upon the camel that had brought it from Damascus:  at the same time all the other camels were loaded again; and the vizier mounting his horse, ordered the camel that carried his nephew to march before him, and entered the city with all his suit.  After passing through several streets, where no one appeared, he arrived at his palace, where he ordered the chest to be taken down, but not opened till farther orders.

While his retinue were unlading the other camels, he took Buddir ad Deen’s mother and his daughter aside; and addressed himself to the latter:  “God be praised,” said he, “my child, for this happy occasion of meeting your cousin and your husband!  You remember, of course, what order your chamber was in on your wedding night:  go and put all things as they were then placed; and if your memory do not serve you, I can aid it by a written account, which I caused to be taken upon that occasion.”

The beautiful lady went joyfully to execute her father’s orders; and he at the same time commanded the hall to be adorned as when Buddir ad Deen Houssun was there with the sultan of Egypt’s hunch-backed groom.  As he went over his manuscript, his domestics placed every moveable in the described order.  The throne was not forgotten, nor the lighted wax candles.  When every thing was arranged in the hall, the vizier went into his daughter’s chamber and put in their due place Buddir ad Deen’s apparel, with the purse of sequins.  This done, he said to the beautiful lady, “Undress yourself, my child, and go to bed.  As soon as Buddir ad Deen enters your room, complain of his being from you so long, and tell him, that when you awoke, you were astonished you did not find him by you.  Press him to come to bed again; and to-morrow morning you will divert your mother-in-law and me, by giving us an account of your interview.”  This said, he went from his daughter’s apartment, and left her to undress herself and go to bed.

Shumse ad Deen Mahummud ordered all his domestics to depart the hall, excepting two or three, whom he desired to remain.  These he commanded to go and take Buddir ad Deen out of the cage, to strip him to his under vest and drawers, to conduct him in that condition to the hall, to leave him there alone, and shut the door upon him.