gh he was very
drunk, he was yet sober enough to know that the dawn was at hand, and
that all good Mussulmen would shortly be going to prayer. So he
hastened his steps lest he should meet some one on his way to the
mosque, who, seeing his condition, would send him to prison as a
drunkard. In his haste he jostled against the hunchback, who fell
heavily upon him, and the merchant, thinking he was being attacked by a
thief, knocked him down with one blow of his fist. He then called
loudly for help, beating the fallen man all the while.

The chief policeman of the quarter came running up, and found a
Christian ill-treating a Mussulman. "What are you doing?" he asked
indignantly.

"He tried to rob me," replied the merchant, "and very nearly choked me."

"Well, you have had your revenge," said the man, catching hold of his
arm. "Come, be off with you!"

As he spoke he held out his hand to the hunchback to help him up, but
the hunchback never moved. "Oho!" he went on, looking closer, "so this
is the way a Christian has the impudence to treat a Mussulman!" and
seizing the merchant in a firm grasp he took him to the inspector of
police, who threw him into prison till the judge should be out of bed
and ready to attend to his case. All this brought the merchant to his
senses, but the more he thought of it the less he could understand how
the hunchback could have died merely from the blows he had received.

The merchant was still pondering on this subject when he was summoned
before the chief of police and questioned about his crime, which he
could not deny. As the hunchback was one of the Sultan's private
jesters, the chief of police resolved to defer sentence of death until
he had consulted his master. He went to the palace to demand an
audience, and told his story to the Sultan, who only answered,

"There is no pardon for a Christian who kills a Mussulman. Do your
duty."

So the chief of police ordered a gallows to be erected, and sent criers
to proclaim in every street in the city that a Christian was to be
hanged that day for having killed a Mussulman.

When all was ready the merchant was brought from prison and led to the
foot of the gallows. The executioner knotted the cord firmly round the
unfortunate man's neck and was just about to swing him into the air,
when the Sultan's purveyor dashed through the crowd, and cried,
panting, to the hangman,

"Stop, stop, don't be in such a hurry. It was not he who