a neighbour who was absent from home, and going to his room
they placed the corpse against the fireplace. This man, returning and
crying out: "So it is not the rats who plunder my larder!" began to
belabour the hunchback, till the body rolled over and lay still. Then in
great fear of his deed, this Mussulman carried the corpse into the
street, and placed it upright against a shop.

Came by a Christian merchant at dawn of day, and running against the
hunchback tumbled him over; then thinking himself attacked he struck the
body, and at that moment the watch came by and haled the merchant before
the sultan.

Now the hunchback was a favourite of the sultan, and he ordered the
Christian merchant to be executed.

To the scaffold, just when death was to be done, came the Mussulman, and
confessed that he was the murderer. So the executioner released the
Christian, and was about to hang the other, when the doctor came and
confessed to being the murderer. So the doctor took the place of the
Mussulman, when the tailor and his wife hastened to the scene, and
confessed that they were guilty.

Now, when this story came to the ears of the sultan, he said: "Great is
Allah, whose will must be done!" and he released all of them, and
commanded this story of the hunchback to be written in a book.

_VI.--Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp_

There was in the old time a bad and idle boy who lived with his mother,
a poor widow, and gave her much unrest. And there came to him one day a
wicked magician, who called himself the boy's uncle, and made rich
presents to the mother, and one day he led Aladdin out to make him a
merchant. Now, the magician knew by his magic of a vast hoard of wealth,
together with a wonderful lamp, which lay in the earth buried in
Aladdin's name. And he sent the boy to fetch the lamp, giving him a
magic ring, and waited on the earth for his return. But Aladdin, his
pockets full of jewels, refused to give up the lamp till his false uncle
helped him to the surface of the earth, and in rage the magician caused
the stone to fall upon the cave, and left Aladdin to die.

But as he wept, wringing his hands, the genie of the magic ring
appeared, and by his aid Aladdin was restored to his mother. There, with
the genie of the lamp to wait upon him, he lived, till, seeing the
sultan's daughter pass on her way to the bath, he conceived violent love
for her, and sent his mother to the sultan with all his wonderful
jewels, as