"this is a most vile, lewd custom, and not to be endured of any!"
Meanwhile, behold, the most part of the townsfolk came in and fell

to condoling with my gossip for his wife and for himself.
Presently they laid the dead woman out, as was their wont, and

setting her on a bier, carried her and her husband without the city
till they came to a place in the side of a mountain at the end of

the island by the sea. And here they raised a great rock and
discovered the mouth of a stone-riveted pit or well, leading down into

a vast undergroundcavern that ran beneath the mountain. Into this pit
they threw the corpse, then, tying a rope of palm fibers under the

husband's armpits, they let him down into the cavern, and with him a
great pitcher of fresh water and seven scones by way of viaticum. When

he came to the bottom, he loosed himself from the rope and they drew
it up, and stopping the mouth of the pit with the great stone, they

returned to the city, leaving my friend in the cavern with his dead
wife. When I saw this, I said to myself, "By Allah, this fashion of

death is more grievous than the first!" And I went in to the King
and said to him, "O my lord, why do ye bury the quick with the

dead?" Quoth he: "It hath been the custom, thou must know, of our
forebears and our olden kings from time immemorial, if the husband die

first, to bury his wife with him, and the like with the wife, so we
may not sever them, alive or dead." I asked, "O King of the Age, if

the wife of a foreigner like myself die among you, deal ye with him as
with yonder man?" and he answered, "Assuredly we do with him even as

thou hast seen." When I heard this, my gall bladder was like to burst,
for the violence of my dismay and concern for myself. My wit became

dazed, I felt as if in a vile dungeon, and hated their society, for
I went about in fear lest my wife should die before me and they bury

me alive with her. However, after a while I comforted myself,
saying, "Haply I shall predecease her, or shall have returned to my

own land before she die, for none knoweth which shall go first and
which shall go last."

Then I applied myself to diverting my mind from this thought with
various occupations, but it was not long before my wife sickened and

complained and took to her pillow and fared after a few days to the
mercy of Allah. And the King and the rest of the folk came, as was

their wont, to condole with me and her family and to console us for
her loss, and not less to condole with me for myself. Then the women

washed her, and arraying her in her richest raiment and golden
ornaments, necklaces, and jewelry, laid her on the bier and bore her

to the mountain aforesaid, where they lifted the cover of the pit
and cast her in. After which all my intimates and acquaintances and my

wife's kith and kin came round me, to farewell me in my lifetime and
console me for my own death, whilst I cried out among them, saying:

"Almighty Allah never made it lawful to bury the quick with the
dead! I am a stranger, not one of your kind, and I cannot abear your

custom, and had I known it I never would have wedded among you!"
They heard me not and paid no heed to my words, but laying hold of me,

bound me by force and let me down. into the cavern, with a large
gugglet of sweet water and seven cakes of bread, according to their

custom. When I came to the bottom, they called out to me to cast
myself loose from the cords, but I refused to do so, so they threw

them down on me and, closing the mouth of the pit with the stones
aforesaid, went their ways.

I looked about me and found myself in a vast cave full of dead
bodies that exhaled a fulsome and loathsome smell, and the air was

heavy with the groans of the dying. Thereupon I fell to blaming myself
for what I had done, saying: "By Allah, I deserve all that hath

befallen me and all that shall befall me! What curse was upon me to
take a wife in this city? There is no Majesty and there is no Might

save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! As often as I say I have
escaped from one calamity, I fall into a worse. By Allah, this is an

abominable death to die! Would Heaven I had died a decent death and
been washed and shrouded like a man and a Moslem. Would I had been

drowned at sea, or perished in the mountains! It were better than to
die this miserable death!" And on such wise I kept blaming my own

folly and greed of gain in that black hole, knowing not night from
day, and I ceased not to ban the Foul Fiend and to bless the

Almighty Friend. Then I threw myself down on the bones of the dead and
lay there, imploring Allah's help, and in the violence of my despair

invoking death, which came not to me, till the fire of hunger burned
my stomach and thirst set my throat aflame, when I sat up and

feeling for the bread, ate a morsel and upon it swallowed a mouthful
of water.

After this, the worst night I ever knew, I arose, and exploring the,
cavern, found that it extended a long way with hollows in its sides,

and its floor was strewn with dead bodies and rotten bones that had
lain there from olden time. So I made myself a place in a cavity of

the cavern, afar from the corpses lately thrown down, and there slept.
I abode thus a long while, till my provision was like to give out, and

yet I ate not save once every day or second day, nor did I drink
more than an occasionaldraught, for fear my victual should fail me

before my death. And I said to myself: "Eat little and drink little.
Belike the Lord shall vouchsafedeliverance to thee!" One day as I sat

thus, pondering my case and bethinking me how I should do when my
bread and water should be exhausted, behold, the stone that covered

the opening was suddenly rolled away and the light streamed down
upon me. Quoth I: "I wonder what is the matter. Haply they have

brought another corpse." Then I espied folk standing about the mouth
of the pit, who presently let down a dead man and a live woman,

weeping and bemoaning herself, and with her an ampler supply of
bread and water than usual. I saw her and she was a beautiful woman,

but she saw me not. And they closed up the opening and went away. Then
I took the leg bone of a dead man and, going up to the woman, smote

her on the crown of the head, and she cried one cry and fell down in a
swoon. I smote her a second and a third time, till she was dead,

when I laid hands on her bread and water and found on her great plenty
of ornaments and rich apparel, necklaces, jewels and gold trinkets,

for it was their custom to bury women in all their finery. I carried
the vivers to my sleeping place in the cavern side and ate and drank

of them sparingly, no more than sufficed to keep the life in me,
lest the provaunt come speedily to an end and I perish of hunger and

thirst.
Yet did I never wholly lose hope in Almighty Allah. I abode thus a

great while, killing all the live folk they let down into the cavern
and taking their provisions of meat and drink, till one day, as I

slept, I was awakened by something scratching and burrowing among
the bodies in a corner of the cave and said, "What can this be?"

fearing wolves or hyenas. So I sprang up, and seizing the leg bone
aforesaid, made for the noise. As soon as the thing was ware of me, it

fled from me into the inward of the cavern, and lo! it was a wild
beast. However, I followed it to the further end, till I saw afar

off a point of light not bigger than a star, now appearing and then
disappearing. So I made for it, and as I drew near, it grew larger and

brighter, till I was certified that it was a crevice in the rock,
leading to the open country, and I said to myself: "There must be some

reason for this opening. Either it is the mouth of a second pit such
as that by which they let me down, or else it is a natural fissure

in the stonery." So I bethought me awhile, and nearing the light,
found that it came from a breach in the back side of the mountain,

which the wild beasts had enlarged by burrowing, that they might enter
and devour the dead and freely go to and from. When I saw this, my

spirits revived and hope came back to me and I made sure of life,
after having died a death. So I went on, as in a dream, and making

shift to scramble through the breach, found myself on the slope of a
high mountain overlooking the salt sea and cutting off all access

thereto from the island, so that none could come at that part of the
beach from the city. I praised my Lord and thanked Him, rejoicing

greatly and heartening myself with the prospect of deliverance.
Then I returned through the crack to the cavern and brought out

all the food and water I had saved up, and donned some of the dead
folk's clothes over my own. After which I gathered together all the

collars and necklaces of pearls and jewels and trinkets of gold and
silver set with precious stones and other ornaments and valuables I