When all was ready the merchant was brought from prison and led to the foot of the gallows.  The executioner knotted the cord firmly round the unfortunate man’s neck and was just about to swing him into the air, when the Sultan’s purveyor dashed through the crowd, and cried, panting, to the hangman,

“Stop, stop, don’t be in such a hurry.  It was not he who did the murder, it was I.”

The chief of police, who was present to see that everything was in order, put several questions to the purveyor, who told him the whole story of the death of the hunchback, and how he had carried the body to the place where it had been found by the Christian merchant.

“You are going,” he said to the chief of police, “to kill an innocent man, for it is impossible that he should have murdered a creature who was dead already.  It is bad enough for me to have slain a Mussulman without having it on my conscience that a Christian who is guiltless should suffer through my fault.”

Now the purveyor’s speech had been made in a loud voice, and was heard by all the crowd, and even if he had wished it, the chief of police could not have escaped setting the merchant free.

“Loose the cords from the Christian’s neck,” he commanded, turning to the executioner, “and hang this man in his place, seeing that by his own confession he is the murderer.”

The hangman did as he was bid, and was tying the cord firmly, when he was stopped by the voice of the Jewish doctor beseeching him to pause, for he had something very important to say.  When he had fought his way through the crowd and reached the chief of police,

“Worshipful sir,” he began, “this Mussulman whom you desire to hang is unworthy of death; I alone am guilty.  Last night a man and a woman who were strangers to me knocked at my door, bringing with them a patient for me to cure.  The servant opened it, but having no light was hardly able to make out their faces, though she readily agreed to wake me and to hand me the fee for my services.  While she was telling me her story they seem to have carried the sick man to the top of the staircase and then left him there.  I jumped up in a hurry without waiting for a lantern, and in the darkness I fell against something, which tumbled headlong down the stairs and never stopped till it reached the bottom.  When I examined the body I found it was quite dead, and the corpse was that of a hunchback Mussulman.  Terrified at what we had done, my wife and I took the body on the roof and let it down the chimney of our neighbour the purveyor, whom you were just about to hang.  The purveyor, finding him in his room, naturally thought he was a thief, and struck him such a blow that the man fell down and lay motionless on the floor.  Stooping to examine him, and finding him stone dead, the purveyor supposed that the man had died from the blow he had received; but of course this was a mistake, as you will see from my account, and I only am the murderer; and although I am innocent of any wish to commit a crime, I must suffer for it all the same, or else have the blood of two Musselmans on my conscience.  Therefore send away this man, I pray you, and let me take his place, as it is I who am guilty.”