the head-shepherd and asked him concerning the kid he had
butchered. He replied, "By Allah, O my lord, the nanny-goat that
bare the kid died and we found none other in milk to suckle him;
but I had a bitch that had just pupped and her have I made
nourish him." The Sultan lastly hent his sword in hand and
proceeded to the apartments of the Sultanah-mother and cried, "By
Allah, unless thou avert my shame[FN#12] we will cut thee down
with this scymitar! Say me whose son am I?" She replied, "By
Allah, O my child, indeed falsehood is an excuse, but fact and
truth are more saving and superior. Verily thou art the son of a
cook!"--And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell
silent and ceased to say her permitted say. Then quoth her sister
Dunyazad, "How sweet is thy story, O sister mine, and how
enjoyable and delectable!" Quoth she, "And where is this compared
with that I would relate to you on the coming night, an the King
suffer me to survive?" Now when it was the next night and that
was

The Three Hundred and Thirty-second Night,

Dunyazad said to her, "Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be
other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short
the watching of this our latter night!" She replied, "With love
and good will!" It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the
director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting
and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the
Sultan's mother said to him, "Verily thou art a cook's son. Thy
sire could not beget boy-children and I bare him only a single
daughter. But it so fortuned that the kitchener's wife lay in of
a boy (to wit, thyself); so we gave my girl-babe to the cook and