without staying for my servant to light a candle, and in the dark happened to stumble upon the sick person, and kicked him down stairs.  In fine, I saw he was dead, and that it was the crooked Mussulman, whose death you are now about to avenge.  So my wife and I took the corpse, and, after conveying it up to the leads of our house, moved it to the roof of the purveyor’s house, our next neighbour, and let it down the chimney into the chamber.  The purveyor, finding it in his house, took the little man for a thief, and, after beating him, concluded he had killed him; but that it was not so, you will be convinced by this my deposition; so that I am the only author of the murder:  and though it was committed undesignedly, I have resolved to expiate my crime by keeping clear of the charge of the death of two Mussulmen, and hinder you from executing the sultan’s purveyor, whose innocence I have now revealed.  So pray dismiss him, and put me in his place, for I alone am the cause of the death of the little man.

The chief justice being persuaded that the Jewish doctor was the murderer, gave orders to the executioner to seize him, and release the purveyor.  Accordingly the doctor was just going to be hung up, when the tailor appeared, crying to the executioner to hold his hand, and make room for him, that he might come and make his confession to the lord justice; which being done, My lord, said he to the judge, you have narrowly escaped taking away the lives of three innocent persons, but if you will have patience to hear me, I will discover to you the real murderer of the crook-backed man.  If his death is to be expiated by another, that must be mine.  Yesterday evening, as I was at work in my shop, and pretty merry, the little hunch-back came to my door half drunk, and sat down before it.  He began to sing, so I invited him to pass the evening at my house.  Accordingly, he accepted of the invitation, and went with me.  We sat down to supper, and I gave him a plate of fish; but, in eating, a bone stuck in his throat; and though my wife and I did our utmost to relieve him, he died in a few minutes.  His death affected us extremely; and from fear of being charged with it, we carried the corpse to the Jewish doctor’s house, and knocked at the door.  The maid coming down and opening it, I desired her to go up forthwith, and ask her master to come down and give his advice to a sick person that we had brought along with us; and withal, to encourage him, I charged her to give him a piece of money, which I put into her hand.  When she was gone up, I carried hunch-back up stairs, laid him upon the uppermost step, and then my wife and I made the best of our way home.  The doctor, in coming down, kicked the corpse down stairs, and thereupon he supposed himself to be the author of his death.  Now, this being the case, continued he, release the doctor, and let me die in his room.