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Updated: May 6, 2025
'Know, replied Kezib el Ban. 'that the Lady Zubeideh bribed one of her waiting-women to drug her with henbane and laying her in a chest, commanded Sewab and Kafour to take it and bury it among the tombs. Quoth Kheizuran, 'And is not the lady Cout el Culoub dead? 'No, replied the other; 'God preserve her youth from death! but I have heard the Lady Zubeideh say that she is with a young merchant of Damascus, by name Ghanim ben Eyoub, and has been with him these four months, whilst this our lord is weeping and watching anights over an empty tomb. When the Khalif heard the girls' talk and knew that the tomb was a trick and a fraud and that Cout el Culoub had been with Ghanim ben Eyoub for four months, he was sore enraged and rising up, summoned his officers of state, whereupon the Vizier Jaafer the Barmecide came up and kissed the earth before him, and the Khalif said to him, 'O Jaafer, take a company of men with thee and fall upon the house of Ghanim ben Eyoub and bring him to me, with my slave-girl Cout el Culoub, for I will assuredly punish him! 'I hear and obey, answered Jaafer, and setting out with his guards and the chief of the police, repaired to Ghanim's house.
At this sight he was confounded and was about to return to the King, when the princess awoke, and seeing him, was terrified and changed colour and said to him, 'O Kafour, veil thou what God hath veiled. But he replied, 'I cannot conceal aught from the King; and locking the door on them, returned to Shehriman, who said to him, 'Hast thou given the casket to the princess? 'Here is the casket, answered the eunuch.
And they cursed me and reviled me, whilst I stood laughing and saying, "How can my master kill me, when he bought me with this fault?" Then my master returned home and found his house in ruins, and it was I who had laid waste the most part of it, having destroyed things worth much money, as had also done his wife, who said to him, "It was Kafour who broke the vessels and the china."
When they came to the tomb, one of those who were carrying the chest cried out to the other, 'Hello, Sewab! 'What ails thee, O Kafour? said the other. 'Were we not here at nightfall, asked the first, 'and did we not leave the gate open? 'True, replied Sewab. 'See, said the other, 'it is now shut and barred. 'How small is your wit! broke in the bearer of the lantern, whose name was Bekhit.
But I outran them and reached the garden before them, and when my master saw me in this state and heard me crying out, "Alas, my mistress! Alas! Alas! Who is left to take pity on me, now that my mistress is dead? Would God I had died instead of her!" he was confounded and his colour paled. Then said he to me, "What ails thee, O Kafour? What is the matter?"
Then they took me unawares and gelded me: and when they brought her to her husband, they made me her eunuch, to go before her, wherever she went, whether to the bath or to her father's house. This then, O my brothers, is my story and how I came to be docked of my cullions; and peace be on you. Then said the second eunuch, 'Know, O my brothers, that Story of the Eunuch Kafour.
"We were all in good health and case," answered they; "nor has aught befallen us in the house, save that thy slave Kafour came to us, bareheaded, with his clothes torn and crying out, 'Alas, my master!
But he died, and a black slave named Kafour, took the sceptre from the hands of the dying man, and said, 'He gave it to me as to his successor. And the four hundred thousand hornets and grasshoppers repeated these words, and the nation bowed its head and submitted to the rule of this black man. "But one man bad the courage to defy this slave.
So let us fall to work at once, and when we get back to the palace, I will tell you my story and how I became an eunuch. So they set down the lantern and dug a hole between four tombs, the length and breadth of the chest, Kafour plying the spade and Sewab clearing away the earth by basketsful, till they had reached a depth of half a fathom, when they laid the chest in the hole and threw back the earth over it: then went out and shutting the door, disappeared from Ghanim's sight.
Then my mistress overturned the furniture of the house, pell-mell, tore down the shelves, broke up the casements and the lattices and smeared the walls with mud and indigo. Presently she said to me, "Out on thee, O Kafour! Come and help me tear down these cupboards and break up these vessels and porcelain!"
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