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Updated: June 7, 2025
"I ask no more," said the caliph, laughing heartily, "and I am well satisfied with your exactness." Then addressing himself to Zobeide, "Well, madam," said he, "have you yet any thing to say against so certain a truth? Will you still believe that Nouzhatoul-aouadat is alive, and that Abou Hassan is dead? And will you not own that you have lost your wager?"
He was overjoyed when Zobeide sent the nurse; because he was persuaded that the report she must make would agree with his, justify him, and restore him to her favour. In the mean time Abou Hassan, who watched at the window, perceived the nurse at a distance, and guessing that she was sent by Zobeide, called his wife, and told her that the princess's nurse was coming to know the truth.
But if he had intended to speak as the caliph commanded him, Zobeide would not have allowed him time: for having turned to the calenders, and seeing them all blind with one eye, she asked if they were brothers. One of them answered, "No, madam, no otherwise than as we are calenders; that is to say, as we observe the same rules." "Were you born blind of the right eye?" continued she.
The guests continued their conversation, when, after an interval, Zobeide rose up, and taking Amina by the hand, said to her, "Come, sister, the company shall not prevent us from doing as we have always been accustomed." Amina, who perfectly understood what her sister meant, got up, and took away the dishes, tables, bottles, glasses, and also the instruments on which the calenders had played.
The caliph, who had not ceased laughing at the singularity of the adventure, rising, said to Abou Hassan and his wife, "Follow me; I will give you the thousand pieces of gold I promised, for joy to find you are not dead." Zobeide desired him to let her make her slave a present of the same sum, for the same reason.
He then sent a doctor to Zobeide; who succeeded in causing a miscarriage, and who, his work done, was seized and strangled by the black mutes who had just beheaded the gipsies.
At length Zobeide breaking silence, said to the caliph, "Alas! they are both dead! You have done much," continued she, looking at the caliph and Mesrour, "to endeavour to make me believe that my dear slave was dead, and I find it is true: grief at the loss of her husband has certainly killed her."
The princess, impatient to know what had happened to her, rose up immediately, and went to meet her at the door of her ante-chamber. Nouzhatoul-aouadat played her part to perfection. As soon as she saw Zobeide, who held the door open, she redoubled her cries, tore her hair off by handfuls, beat her face and breast, and threw herself at her feet, bathing them with her tears.
Mesrour has just come from Abou Hassan's, and tells you that he saw Nouzhatoul-aouadat lying dead in the middle of the room, Abou Hassan alive, and sitting by her; and yet you will not believe this evidence, which nobody can reasonably refuse; I cannot comprehend this conduit." Zobeide would not hear the caliph.
After which Haroun al Raschid declared that he would give his own heart and hand to Zobeide, and offered the other three sisters to the calenders, sons of sultans, who accepted them for their brides with much joy. The caliph assigned each of them a magnificent palace in the city of Bagdad, promoted them to the highest dignities of his empire, and admitted them to his councils.
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