Now whilst they were on this wise, she cried out and beat upon her breast, saying, “My husband had a signet-ring of ruby, which was pledged to him for five hundred dinars, and I put it on; but ’twas too large for me, so I straitened it with wax, and when I let down the bucket,[FN#231] that ring must have dropped into the well. So turn thy face to the door, the while I doff my dress and go down into the well and fetch it.” Quoth Ali, “’Twere shame on me that thou shouldst go down there I being present; none shall do it save I.” So he put off his clothes and tied the rope about himself and she let him down into the well. Now there was much water therein and she said to him, “The rope is too short; loose thyself and drop down.” So he did himself loose from the rope and dropped into the water, in which he sank fathoms deep without touching bottom; whilst she donned her mantilla and taking his clothes, returned to her mother— And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say. When is was the Seven Hundred and Twelfth Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Ali of Cairo was in the well, Zaynab donned her mantilla and, taking his clothes, returned to her mother and said, “I have stripped Ali the Egyptian and cast him into the Emir Hasan’s well, whence alas for his chance of escaping!”[FN#232] Presently, the Emir Hasan, the master of the house, who had been absent at the Divan, came home and, finding the door open, said to his Syce, “Why didst thou not draw the bolt?” “O my lord,” replied the groom, “indeed I locked it with my own hand.” The Emir cried, “As my head liveth, some robber hath entered my house!” Then he went in and searched, but found none and said to the groom, “Fill the ewer, that I may make the Wuzu-ablution.” So the man lowered the bucket into the well but, when he drew it up, he found it heavy and looking down, saw something therein sitting; whereupon he let it fall into the water and cried out, saying, “O my lord, an Ifrit came up to me out of the well!” Replied the Emir, “Go and fetch four doctors of the law, that they may read the Koran over him, till he go away.” So he fetched the doctors and the Emir said to them, “Sit round this well and exorcise me this Ifrit.” They did as he bade them; after which the groom and another servant lowered the bucket again and Ali clung to it and hid himself under it patiently till he came near the top, when he sprang out and landed among the doctors, who fell a-cuffing one another and crying out, “Ifrit! Ifrit!” The Emir looked at Ali and seeing him a young man, said to him, “Art thou a thief?” “No,” replied Ali; “Then what dost thou in the well?” asked the Emir; and Ali answered, “I was asleep and dreamt a wet dream;[FN#233] so I went down to the Tigris to wash myself and dived, whereupon the current carried me under the earth and I came up in this well.” Quoth the other, “Tell