" Whilst we were talking, up came the people of
the quarter and others, men and women, together with the chief of
the police and his suite. So my master and the other merchants
went up to him and told him the story and how this was but half a
lie, at which the people wondered and deemed the lie an enormous
one. And they cursed me and reviled me, whilst I stood laughing
and saying, "How can my master kill me, when he bought me with
this fault?" Then my master returned home and found his house in
ruins, and it was I who had laid waste the most part of it,
having destroyed things worth much money, as had also done his
wife, who said to him, "It was Kafour who broke the vessels and
the china." Thereupon his rage redoubled and he beat hand upon
hand, exclaiming, "By Allah, never in my life did I see such a
son of shame as this slave; and he says this is only half a lie!
How if he had told a whole one? He would have laid waste a city
or two!" Then in his rage he went to the chief of the police, who
made me eat stick till I fainted: and whilst I was yet senseless,
they fetched a barber, who gelded me and cauterized the parts.
When I revived, I found myself an eunuch, and my master said to
me, "Even as thou hast made my heart bleed for the most precious
things I had, so will I grieve thy heart for that of thy members
by which thou settest most store.
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