On hearing the declaration of the Jewish doctor, the chief of police commanded that he should be led to the gallows, and the Sultan’s purveyor go free.  The cord was placed round the Jew’s neck, and his feet had already ceased to touch the ground when the voice of the tailor was heard beseeching the executioner to pause one moment and to listen to what he had to say.

“Oh, my lord,” he cried, turning to the chief of police, “how nearly have you caused the death of three innocent people!  But if you will only have the patience to listen to my tale, you shall know who is the real culprit.  If some one has to suffer, it must be me!  Yesterday, at dusk, I was working in my shop with a light heart when the little hunchback, who was more than half drunk, came and sat in the doorway.  He sang me several songs, and then I invited him to finish the evening at my house.  He accepted my invitation, and we went away together.  At supper I helped him to a slice of fish, but in eating it a bone stuck in his throat, and in spite of all we could do he died in a few minutes.  We felt deeply sorry for his death, but fearing lest we should be held responsible, we carried the corpse to the house of the Jewish doctor.  I knocked, and desired the servant to beg her master to come down as fast as possible and see a sick man whom we had brought for him to cure; and in order to hasten his movements I placed a piece of money in her hand as the doctor’s fee.  Directly she had disappeared I dragged the body to the top of the stairs, and then hurried away with my wife back to our house.  In descending the stairs the doctor accidentally knocked over the corpse, and finding him dead believed that he himself was the murderer.  But now you know the truth set him free, and let me die in his stead.”

The chief of police and the crowd of spectators were lost in astonishment at the strange events to which the death of the hunchback had given rise.

“Loosen the Jewish doctor,” said he to the hangman, “and string up the tailor instead, since he has made confession of his crime.  Really, one cannot deny that this is a very singular story, and it deserves to be written in letters of gold.”

The executioner speedily untied the knots which confined the doctor, and was passing the cord round the neck of the tailor, when the Sultan of Kashgar, who had missed his jester, happened to make inquiry of his officers as to what had become of him.

“Sire,” replied they, “the hunchback having drunk more than was good for him, escaped from the palace and was seen wandering about the town, where this morning he was found dead.  A man was arrested for having caused his death, and held in custody till a gallows was erected.  At the moment that he was about to suffer punishment, first one man arrived, and then another, each accusing themselves of the murder, and this went on for a long time, and at the present instant the chief of police is engaged in questioning a man who declares that he alone is the true assassin.”