As for Houssain, he forsook not the life of a holy man living in the
wilderness.


_V.--The Hunchback_


There lived long ago a poor tailor with a pretty wife to whom he was
tenderly attached. One day there came to his door a hunchback, who
played upon a musical instrument and sang to it so amusingly that the
tailor straightway carried him to his wife. So delighted by the
hunchback's singing was the tailor's wife that she cooked a dish of fish
and the three sat down to be merry. But in the midst of the feast a bone
stuck in the hunchback's throat, and before a man could stare he was
dead. Afraid that they should be accused of murder, the tailor conspired
with his wife what they should do. "I have it," said he, and getting a
piece of money he sallied forth at dark with the hunchback's body and
arrived before the house of a doctor.

Here knocked he on the door, and giving the maid a piece of money, bade
her hasten the doctor to his need. So soon as the maid's back was
turned, he placed the hunchback on the top stair and fled. Now the
doctor, coming quickly, struck against the corpse so that it fell to the
bottom of the stairs. "Woe is me, for I have killed a patient!" said he,
and fearing to be accused of murder, carried the body in to his wife.

Now they had 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