Tales from the Arabic/Story of the Two Sharpers Who Cheated Each His Fellow

by Unknown

STORY OF THE TWO SHARPERS WHO CHEATED EACH HIS FELLOW.

There was once, in the city of Baghdad, a man, [by name El Merouzi,]^[1] who was a sharper and plagued^[2] the folk with his knavish tricks, and he was renowned in all quarters [for roguery]. [He went out one day], carrying a load of sheep’s dung, and took an oath that he would not return to his lodging till he had sold it at the price of raisins. Now there was in another city a second sharper, [by name Er Razi,]^[3] one of its people, who [went out the same day], bearing a load of goat’s dung, which he had sworn that he would not sell but at the price of dried figs.

So each of them fared on with that which was with him and gave not over going till they met in one of the inns^[4] and each complained to the other of that which he had abidden of travel [in quest of custom] and of the lack of demand for his wares. Now each of them had it in mind to cheat his fellow; so El Merouzi said to Er Razi, ‘Wilt thou sell me that?’ ‘Yes,’ answered he, and the other continued, ‘And wilt thou buy that which is with me?’ Er Razi assented; so they agreed upon this and each of them sold his fellow that which was with him [in exchange for the other’s ware]; after which they bade each other farewell and parted. As soon as they were out of each other’s sight, they examined their loads, to see what was therein, and one of them found that he had a load of sheep’s dung and the other that he had a load of goat’s dung; whereupon each of them turned back in quest of his fellow. They met in the inn aforesaid and laughed at each other and cancelling their bargain, agreed to enter into partnership and that all that they had of money and other good should be in common between them, share and share alike.

Then said Er Razi to El Merouzi, ‘Come with me to my city, for that it is nearer [than thine].’ So he went with him, and when he came to his lodging, he said to his wife and household and neighbours, ‘This is my brother, who hath been absent in the land of Khorassan and is come back.’ And he abode with him in all honour and worship three days’ space. On the fourth day, Er Razi said to him, ‘Know, O my brother, that I purpose to do somewhat.’ ‘What is it?’ asked El Merouzi. Quoth the other, ‘I mean to feign myself dead and do thou go to the market and hire two porters and a bier. [Then come back and take me up and go round about the streets and markets with me and collect alms on my account.]’^[5]

Accordingly El Merouzi repaired to the market and fetching that which he sought, returned to Er Razi’s house, where he found the latter cast down in the vestibule, with his beard tied and his eyes shut; and indeed, his colour was paled and his belly blown out and his limbs relaxed. So he deemed him in truth dead and shook him; but he spoke not; and he took a knife and pricked him in the legs, but he stirred not. Then said Er Razi, ‘What is this, O fool?’ And El Merouzi answered, ‘Methought thou wast dead in very sooth.’ Quoth Er Razi, ‘Get thee to seriousness and leave jesting.’ So he took him up and went with him to the market and collected [alms] for him that day till eventide, when he carried him back to his lodging and waited till the morrow.

Next morning, he again took up the bier and went round with it as before, in quest of alms. Presently, the master of police, who was of those who had given alms on account of the supposed dead man on the previous day, met him; so he was angered and fell on the porters and beat them and took the [supposed] dead body, saying, ‘I will bury him and earn the reward [of God].’^[6] So his men took him up and carrying him to the prefecture, fetched grave-diggers, who dug him a grave. Then they bought him a shroud and perfumes^[7] and fetched an old man of the quarter, to wash him. So he recited over him [the appointed prayers and portions of the Koran] and laying him on the bench, washed him and shrouded him. After he had shrouded him, he voided;^[8] so he renewed the washing and went away to make his ablutions,^[9] whilst all the folk departed, likewise, to make the [obligatory] ablution, previously to the funeral.

When the dead man found himself alone, he sprang up, as he were a Satan, and donning the washer’s clothes,^[10] took the bowls and water-can and wrapped them up in the napkins. Then be took his shroud under his arm and went out. The doorkeepers thought that he was the washer and said to him, ‘Hast thou made an end of the washing, so we may tell the Amir?’ ‘Yes,’ answered the sharper and made off to his lodging, where he found El Merouzi soliciting his wife and saying to her, ‘Nay, by thy life, thou wilt never again look upon his face; for that by this time he is buried. I myself escaped not from them but after travail and trouble, and if he speak, they will put him to death.’ Quoth she, ‘And what wilt thou have of me?’ ‘Accomplish my desire of thee,’ answered he, ‘and heal my disorder, for I am better than thy husband.’ And he fell a-toying with her.

When Er Razi heard this, he said, ‘Yonder wittol lusteth after my wife; but I will do him a mischief.’ Then he rushed in upon them, and when El Merouzi saw him, he marvelled at him and said to him, ‘How didst thou make thine escape?’ So he told him the trick he had played and they abode talking of that which they had collected from the folk [by way of alms], and indeed they had gotten great store of money. Then said El Merouzi, ‘Verily, mine absence hath been prolonged and fain would I return to my own country.’ Quoth Er Rasi, ‘As thou wilt;’ and the other said, ‘Let us divide the money we have gotten and do thou go with me to my country, so I may show thee my tricks and my fashions.’ ‘Come to-morrow,’ replied Er Razi, ‘and we will divide the money.’

So El Merouzi went away and the other turned to his wife and said to her, ‘We have gotten us great plenty of money, and yonder dog would fain take the half of it; but this shall never be, for that my mind hath been changed against him, since I heard him solicit thee; wherefore I purpose to play him a trick and enjoy all the money; and do not thou cross me.’ ‘It is well,’ answered she, and he said to her, ‘[To-morrow] at day-peep I will feign myself dead and do thou cry out and tear thy hair, whereupon the folk will flock to me. Then lay me out and bury me, and when the folk are gone away [from the burial-place], do thou dig down to me and take me; and have no fear for me, for I can abide two days in the tomb [without hurt].’ And she answered, ‘Do what thou wilt.’

So, when it was the foredawn hour, she tied his beard and spreading a veil over him, cried out, whereupon the people of the quarter flocked to her, men and women. Presently, up came El Merouzi, for the division of the money, and hearing the crying [of the mourners], said, ‘What is to do?’ Quoth they, ‘Thy brother is dead;’ and he said in himself, ‘The accursed fellow putteth a cheat on me, so he may get all the money for himself, but I will do with him what shall soon bring him to life again.’ Then he rent the bosom of his gown and uncovered his head, weeping and saying, ‘Alas, my brother! Alas, my chief! Alas, my lord!’ And he went in to the men, who rose and condoled with him. Then he accosted Er Razi’s wife and said to her, ‘How came his death about?’ ‘I know not,’ answered she, ‘except that, when I arose in the morning, I found him dead.’ Moreover, he questioned her of the money and good that was with her, but she said, ‘I have no knowledge of this and no tidings.’

So he sat down at the sharper’s head, and said to him, ‘Know, O Razi, that I will not leave thee till after ten days and their nights, wherein I will wake and sleep by thy grave. So arise and be not a fool.’ But he answered him not and El Merouzi [drew his knife and] fell to sticking it into the other’s hands and feet, thinking to make him move; but [he stirred not and] he presently grew weary of this and concluded that the sharper was dead in good earnest. [However, he still misdoubted of the case] and said in himself, ‘This fellow is dissembling, so he may enjoy all the money.’ Therewith he addressed himself to prepare him [for burial] and bought him perfumes and what [not else] was needed. Then they brought him to the washing-place and El Merouzi came to him and heating water till it boiled and bubbled and a third of it was wasted,^[11] fell to pouring it on his skin, so that it turned red and blue and blistered; but he abode still on one case [and stirred not].

So they wrapped him in the shroud and set him on the bier. Then they took up his bier and bearing him to the burial-place, laid him in the grave^[12] and threw the earth over him; after which the folk dispersed, but El Merouzi and the widow abode by the tomb, weeping, and gave not over sitting till sundown, when the woman said to him, ‘Come, let us go to the house, for this weeping will not profit us, nor will it restore the dead.’ ‘By Allah,’ answered the sharper, ‘I will not budge hence till I have slept and waked by this tomb ten days, with their nights!’ When she heard this his speech, she feared lest he should keep his word and his oath, and so her husband perish; but she said in herself, ‘This fellow dissembleth: if I go away and return to my house, he will abide by him a little while and go away.’ And El Merouzi said to her, ‘Arise, thou, and go away.’

So she arose and returned to her house, whilst El Merouzi abode in his place till the night was half spent, when he said to himself, ‘How long [is this to last]? Yet how can I let this knavish dog die and lose the money? Methinks I were better open the tomb on him and bring him forth and take my due of him by dint of grievous beating and torment.’ Accordingly, he dug him up and pulled him forth of the tomb; after which he betook himself to an orchard hard by the burial-ground and cut thence staves and palm sticks. Then he tied the dead man’s legs and came down on him with the staff and beat him grievously; but he stirred not. When the time grew long on him, his shoulders became weary and he feared lest some one of the watch should pass on his round and surprise him. So he took up Er Razi and carrying him forth of the cemetery, stayed not till he came to the Magians’ burying-place and casting him down in a sepulchre^[13] there, rained heavy blows upon him till his shoulders failed him, but the other stirred not. Then he sat down by his side and rested; after which he rose and renewed the beating upon him, [but to no better effect; and thus he did] till the end of the night

Now, as destiny would have it, a band of thieves, whose use it was, whenas they had stolen aught, to resort to that place and divide [their booty], came thither [that night], as of their wont; and they were ten in number and had with them wealth galore, which they were carrying. When they drew near the sepulchre, they heard a noise of blows within it and the captain said, ‘This is a Magian whom the angels^[14] are tormenting.’ So they entered [the burial-ground] and when they came over against El Merouzi, he feared lest they should be the officers of the watch come upon him, wherefore he [arose and] fled and stood among the tombs.^[15] The thieves came up to the place and finding Er Razi bound by the feet and by him near seventy sticks, marvelled at this with an exceeding wonderment and said, ‘God confound thee! This was sure an infidel, a man of many crimes; for, behold, the earth hath rejected him from her womb, and by my life, he is yet fresh! This is his first night [in the tomb] and the angels were tormenting him but now; so whosoever of you hath a sin upon his conscience, let him beat him, as a propitiatory offering to God the Most High.’ And the thieves said, ‘We all have sins upon our consciences.’

So each of them went up to the [supposed] dead man and dealt him nigh upon a hundred blows, exclaiming the while, one, ‘This is for^[16] my father!’ and another, ‘This is for my grandfather!’ whilst a third said, ‘This is for my brother!’ and a fourth, ‘This is for my mother!’ And they gave not over taking turns at him and beating him, till they were weary, what while El Merouzi stood laughing and saying in himself, ‘It is not I alone who have entered into sin against him. There is no power and no virtue save in God the Most High, the Supreme!’

Then the thieves addressed themselves to sharing their booty and presently fell out concerning a sword that was among the spoil, who should take it. Quoth the captain, ‘Methinks we were better prove it; so, if it be good, we shall know its worth, and if it be ill, we shall know that.’ And they said, ‘Try it on this dead man, for he is fresh.’ So the captain took the sword and drawing it, poised it and brandished it; but, when Er Razi saw this, he made sure of death and said in himself, ‘I have borne the washing and the boiling water and the pricking with the knife and the grave and its straitness and all this [beating], trusting in God that I might be delivered from death, and [hitherto] I have been delivered; but, as for the sword, I may not brook that, for but one stroke of it, and I am a dead man.’

So saying, he sprang to his feet and catching up the thigh-bone of one of the dead, cried out at the top of his voice, saying, ‘O ye dead, take them!’ And he smote one of them, whilst his comrade [El Merouzi] smote another and they cried out at them and buffeted them on the napes of their necks; whereupon the thieves left that which was with them of plunder and fled; and indeed their wits forsook them [for terror] and they stayed not in their flight till they came forth of the Magians’ burial-ground and left it a parasang’s length behind them, when they halted, trembling and affrighted for the soreness of that which had betided them of fear and amazement at the dead.

As for Er Razi and El Merouzi, they made peace with each other and sat down to share the booty. Quoth El Merouzi, ‘I will not give thee a dirhem of this money, till thou pay me my due of the money that is in thy house.’ And Er Razi said ‘I will not do it, nor will I subtract this from aught of my due.’ So they fell out upon this and disputed with one another and each went saying to his fellow, ‘I will not give thee a dirhem!’ And words ran high between them and contention was prolonged.

Meanwhile, when the thieves halted, one of them said to the others, ‘Let us return and see;’ and the captain said, ‘This thing is impossible of the dead: never heard we that they came to life on this wise. So let us return and take our good, for that the dead have no occasion for good.’ And they were divided in opinion as to returning: but [presently they came to a decision and] said, ‘Indeed, our arms are gone and we cannot avail against them and will not draw near the place where they are: only let one of us [go thither and] look at it, and if he hear no sound of them, let him advertise us what we shall do.’ So they agreed that they should send a man of them and assigned him [for this service] two parts [of the booty].

Accordingly, he returned to the burial-ground and gave not over going till he stood at the door of the sepulchre, when he heard El Merouzi say to his fellow, ‘I will not give thee a single dirhem of the money!’ The other said the like and they were occupied with contention and mutual revilement and talk. So the thief returned in haste to his fellows, who said, ‘What is behind thee?’ Quoth he, ‘Get you gone and flee for your lives and save yourselves, O fools; for that much people of the dead are come to life and between them are words and contention.’ So the thieves fled, whilst the two sharpers retained to Er Razi’s house and made peace with one another and laid the thieves’ purchase to the money they had gotten aforetime and lived a while of time.

Return to King Shah Bekht and His Vizier Er Rehwan.

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1. i.e. native of Merv.
2. Or “ruined,” lit. “destroyed.”
3. i.e. native of Rei, a city of Khorassia.
4. The text has khenadic, ditches or valleys; but this is, in all probability, a clerical or typographical error for fenadic, inns or caravanserais.
5. It is a paramount duty of the Muslim to provide his dead brother in the faith with decent interment; it is, therefore, a common practice for the family of a poor Arab to solicit contributions toward the expenses of his burial, nor is the well-to-do true believer safe from imposition of the kind described in the text.
6. i.e. the recompense in the world to come promised to the performer of a charitable action.
7. i.e. camphor and lote-tree leaves dried and powdered (sometimes mixed with rose-water) which are strewn over the dead body, before it is wrapped in the shroud. In the case of a man of wealth, more costly perfumes (such as musk, aloes and ambergris) are used.
8. All the ablutions prescribed by the Mohammedan ritual are avoided by the occurrence, during the process, of any cause of ceremonial impurity (such as the mentioned in the text) and must be recommenced.
9. Having handled a corpse, he had become in a state of legal impurity and it behoved him therefore to make the prescribed ablution.
10. Which he had taken off for the purpose of making abulution. This was reversing the ordinary course of affairs, the dead man’s clothes being the washer’s prequisite.
11. i.e. till it was diminished by evaporation to two-thirds of its original volume.
12. The Mohammedan grave is a cell, hollowed out in the sides of a trench and so constructed as to keep out the earth, that the deceased may be able to sit up and answer the examining angels when they visit him in the tomb. There was, therefore, nothing improbable in Er Razi’s boast that he could abide two days in the tomb.
13. Nawous, a sort of overground well or turricle of masonry, surmounted by an iron grating, on which the Gueber’s body is placed for devoration by the birds.
14. “Munkir [Munker] and Nakir [Nekir] are the two angels that preside at ‘the examination of the tomb.’ They visit a man in his grave directly after he has been buried and examine him concerning his faith; if he acknowledge that there is but one God and that Mohammed is His prophet [apostle], they suffer him to rest in peace; otherwise they beat him with [red-hot] iron maces, till he roars so loud[ly] that he is heard by all from east to west, except by man and Ginns [Jinn].”—Palmer’s Koran, Introduction.
15. Lit. the oven (tennour); but this is obviously a mistake for “tombs” (cubour).
16. i.e. as a propitiatory offering on behalf of.