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Azariah the Jew,’ answered the new comer. ‘Is Ali of Cairo with you?’ ‘O Jew’s daughter,’ answered the young lady, ‘if he be with us, what wilt thou with him? Go down, O maid, and open to her.’ So the maid let her in, and when Ali saw her, he said to her, ‘What brings thee hither, O dog’s daughter?’ Quoth she, ‘I testify that there is no god but God and that Mohammed is the Apostle of God. Do men in the faith of Islam give marriage-portions to women or women to men?’ ‘Men endow women,’ answered Ali. ‘Then,’ said she, ‘I come and dower myself for thee, bringing thee, as my marriage-portion, my robe, together with the rod and tray and chains and the head of my father, thine enemy and the enemy of God.’ And she threw down the Jew’s head before him. Now the manner of her killing her father was as follows. On the night of his turning Ali into a dog, she saw, in a dream, one who said to her, ‘Become a Muslim.’ And she did so. Next morning, as soon as she awoke, she expounded Islam to her father, but he refused to embrace the faith; so she drugged him and killed him. As for Ali, he took the gear and giving the broker rendezvous for the morrow at the Divan of the Khalif, that he might take his daughter and the maid to wife, set out, rejoicing, to return to the barrack of the Forty.
On his way, he met a sweetmeat-seller, who was beating hand upon hand and saying, ‘There is no power and no virtue save in God the Most High, the Supreme! Folk’s labour is become sin and men are active but in fraud!’ Then said he to Ali, ‘I conjure thee, by Allah, taste of this marchpane!’ So Ali took a piece and ate it and fell down senseless, for there was henbane therein; whereupon the sweetmeat-seller took the robe and the tray and the rest of the gear and thrusting them into the box in which he kept his sweetmeats, made off. Presently he met a cadi, who called to him, saying, ‘Come hither, O sweetmeat-
