Quoth the Ifrit, "Is the world so strait to thee thou
findest none to marry save my ladylove?" But as he was silent the
Ifrit continued, "Answer me or I will do thee dwell in the dust!"
"By Allah," replied the Gobbo, "O King of the Buffaloes, this is no
fault of mine, for they forced me to wed her, and verily I wot not
that she had a lover amongst the buffaloes. But now I repent, first
before Allah and then before thee." Said the Ifrit to him: "I swear to
thee that if thou fare forth from this place, or thou utter a word
before sunrise, I assuredly will wring thy neck. When the sun rises,
wend thy went and never more return to this house." So saying, the
Ifrit took up the Gobbo bridegroom and set him head downward and
feet upward in the slit of the privy, and said to him: "I will leave
thee here, but I shall be on the lookout for thee till sunrise, and if
thou stir before then, I will seize thee by the feet and dash out
thy brains against the wall. So look out for thy life!"
Thus far concerning the hunchback, but as regards Badr al-Din
Hasan of Bassorah, he left the Gobbo and the Ifrit jangling and
wrangling and, going into the house, sat him down in the very middle
of the alcove.
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