him with foul.”  He feared to return to the druggist; so he stepped down and opened the first door and would have gone out at a venture, unseen of the husband; but, when he came to the outer door, he found it locked and saw not the key.  Hereat he returned to the terrace and began dropping from roof to roof till the people of the house heard him and hastened to fall upon him, deeming him a thief.  Now that house belonged to a Persian man; so they laid hands on him and the house-master fell to beating him, saying to him, “Thou art a thief.”  He replied, “No I am not a thief, but a singing-man, a stranger who, hearing your voices, came to sing to you.”  When the folk heard his words, they talked of letting him go; but the Persian said, “O folk, let not his speech cozen you.  This one is none other than a thief who knoweth how to sing, and when he cometh upon the like of us, he is a singer.”  Said they, “O our lord, this man is a stranger, and needs we must release him.”  Quoth he, “By Allah, my heart heaveth at this fellow!  Let me kill him with beating;” but quoth they, “Thou mayst no ways do that.”  So they delivered the singer from the Persian, the master of the house, and seated him amongst them, whereupon he began singing to them and they rejoiced in him.  Now the Persian had a Mameluke,[FN#329] as he were the full moon, and he arose and went out, and the singer followed him and wept before him, professing lustful love to him and kissing his hands and feet.  The Mameluke took compassion on him and said to him, “When the night cometh and my master entereth the Harim and the folk fare away, I will grant thee thy desire; and I sleep in such a place.”  Then the singer returned and sat with the cup-companions, and the Persian rose and went out with the Mameluke by his side.  Now[FN#330] the singer knew the place which the Mameluke occupied at the first of the night; but it chanced that the youth rose from his stead and the waxen taper went out.  The Persian, who was drunk, fell over on his face, and the singer supposing him to be the Mameluke, said, “By Allah, ’tis good!” and threw himself upon him and began to work at his bag-trousers till the string was loosed; then he brought out[FN#331] his prickle upon which he spat and slipped it into him.  Thereupon the Persian started up, crying out and, laying hands on the singer, pinioned him and beat him a grievous beating, after which he bound him to a tree that stood in the house-court.  Now there was in the house a beautiful singing-girl and when she saw the singer tight pinioned and tied to the tree, she waited till the Persian lay down on his couch, when she arose and going up to the singer, fell to condoling with him over what had betided him and making eyes at him and handling his yard and rubbing it, till it rose upright.  Then said she to him, “Do with me the deed of kind and I will loose thy pinion-bonds, lest he return and beat thee again; for he purposeth thee an ill purpose.”  Quoth he, “Loose me and