Thousand & One Nights:160th Night: The Barber Tells His Story - 9

The police gave the intruder four hundred blows on the buttocks, and when he began to smart, he opened one eye, and as the pain increased with the blows he opened the other eye. The chief asked, "What is this, you devil?" The intruder replied, "Give me you seal ring of pardon and I will tell you what is going on."  The chief gave him the ring.  He said, "My lord, we are four fellows who pretend to be blind.  We enter houses, look at women and corrupt them. In this way we have made ten thousand dirhams. I said to my comrades to give me my share of two thousand five hundred dirhams.  They refused to pay, and took away my money. I appeal to God, and to you for protection, and it is better you keep my share than they.  If you wish to verify what I have said, beat each of them twice as much as you have beaten me, and they will surely open their eyes." 

The chief ordered the three to be beaten, starting with my brother.  My brother was tied to a ladder.  "You vicious men," the chief said to them, "you pretend to be blind?"  My brother said, "None of us can see." But they beat him until he fainted.  Then the intruder said to the chief, "Leave him until he revives; then beat him again, for he can stand more beating than I."
The chief ordered other two to be beaten, and each of them received more than three hundred blows, while the intruder kept saying, "Open your eyes, or you will be beaten anew."

At last he said to the Chief, "Prince, send someone with me to fetch the money, for these fellows will not open their eyes, for fear of being exposed before people."  The chief sent someone to fetch the money, gave the intruder two thousand five hundred dirhams, his supposed share, and took the rest for himself.  Then he banished the three men from the city.  O Commander of the Faithful, I went after my brother, and overtaking him, asked him about his plight, and he told me the story I have just related to you.  I took him secretly back into the city, and arranged for his upkeep, without letting anyone know.

When the Caliph heard my story, he laughed and said, "Give him a gift and let him go."  But I said to him, "By God, O Commander of the Faithful, I am a man of few words and great generosity, and I must relate to you the stories of my other brothers, in order to prove it to you."

Morning overtook and Shahrazad lapsed into silence 




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