still!" "Can it be that thou wilt take me and thou become to me mate and I become to thee man?" "If such be our fate 'twill take place and I will give thee an answer to-morrow;" and so saying the damsel went on to Tarabulus. Now the Kazi after hearing her speech felt his love for her increase; so next morning he sent to ask after her, and when they told him that she had alighted at a Khan, he despatched to her the negress his concubine with a party of friends to ask her in marriage, notifying that he was Kazi of the city. Thereupon she demanded a dower of fifty dinars and naming a deputy caused the knot be knotted and she came to him about evening time and he went in to her. But when it was the supper-hour he called as was his wont to his black handmaiden saying "Fetch the fringed table-cloth," and she fared forth and fetched it bringing also three biscuits and three onions, and as soon as the meal was served up all three sat down to it, the Kazi, the slave-girl, and the new bride. Each took a biscuit and an onion and ate them up and the bride exclaimed "Allah requite thee with wealth. By Allah, this be a wholesome supper." When the judge heard this he was delighted with her and cried out, "Extolled be the Almighty for that at last He hath vouchsafed to me a wife who thanketh the Lord for muchel or for little!" But he knew not what the Almighty had decreed to him through the wile and guile, the malice and mischief of women. Next morning the Kazi repaired to the Mahkamah and the bride arose and solaced herself with looking at the apartments, of which some lay open whilst others were closed. Presently she came to one which was made fast by a door with a wooden bolt and a padlock of iron: she considered it and found it strong but at the threshold was a fissure about the breadth of a finger; so she peeped through and espied gold and silver coins heaped up in trays of brass which stood upon Kursi-stools and the nearest about ten cubits from the door. She then arose and fetched a long wand, the mid-rib of a date-palm,[FN#210] and arming the end with a lump of leaven she pushed it through the chink under the door and turned it round and round upon the money-trays as if sewing or writing. At last two dinars stuck to the dough and she drew them through the fissure and returned to her own chamber; then, calling the negress, she gave her the ducats saying, "Go thou to the Bazar and buy us some mutton and rice and clarified butter; and do thou also bring us some fresh bread and spices and return with them without delay." The negress took the gold and went to the market, where she bought all that her lady bade her buy and speedily came back, when the Kazi's wife arose and cooked a notable meal, after which she and the black chattel ate whatso they wanted. Presently the slave brought basin and ewer to her lady and washed her hands and then fell to kissing her feet, saying, "Allah feed thee, O my