over, to pay his usual visit to the Sultana.

'Poor Abu Nowas is dead!' said Subida when he entered the room.

'It is not Abu Nowas, but his wife who is dead,' answered the Sultan.

'No; really you are quite wrong. She came to tell me herself only a
couple of hours ago,' replied Subida, 'and as he had spent all their
money, I gave her something to bury him with.'

'You must be dreaming,' exclaimed the Sultan. 'Soon after midday Abu
Nowas came into the hall, his eyes streaming with tears, and when I
asked him the reason he answered that his wife was dead, and they had
sold everything they had, and he had nothing left, not so much as would
buy her a shroud, far less for her burial.'

For a long time they talked, and neither would listen to the other, till
the Sultan sent for the door-keeper and bade him go instantly to the
house of Abu Nowas and see if it was the man or his wife who was dead.
But Abu Nowas happened to be sitting with his wife behind the latticed
window, which looked on the street, and he saw the man coming, and
sprang up at once. 'There is the Sultan's door-keeper! They have sent
him here to find out the truth. Quick! throw yourself on the bed and
pretend that you are dead.' And in a moment the wife was stretched out
stiffly, with a linen sheet spread across her, like a corpse.

She was only just in time, for the sheet was hardly drawn across her
when the door opened and the porter came in. 'Has anything happened?'
asked he.

'My poor wife is dead,' replied Abu Nowas. 'Look! she is laid out here.'
And the porter approached the bed, which was in a corner of the room,
and saw the stiff form lying underneath.

'We must all die,' said he, and went back to the Sultan.

'Well, have you found out which of them is dead?' asked the Sultan.

'Yes, noble Sultan; it is the wife,' replied the porter.

'He only says that to please you,' cried Subida in a rage; and calling
to her chamberlain, she ordered him to go at once to the dwelling of Abu
Nowas and see which of the two was dead. 'And be sure you tell the truth
about it,' added she, 'or it will be the worse for you.'

As her chamberlain drew near the house, Abu Nowas caught sight of him.
'There is the Sultana's chamberlain,' he exclaimed in a fright. 'Now it
is my turn to die. Be quick and spread the sheet over me.' And he laid
himself on the bed, and held his breath when the chamberlain came in.
'What are you weeping for?' asked the man, finding the