SOME CURRENT PERSIAN TALES. 395 



As soon as the barber got up, the woman said to him, " I'm just going out for a little ; 

 I'll return in a moment." 



She went to the bedside of the Turk and lifted up his big hat, his long boots and 

 his sword and carried them outside. After defiling them she returned the articles to 

 the Turk's bedside and went to the barber and engaged him in amorous play. 

 Suddenly she slipped away and hid. 



The barber began to call out, time after time, " Ridam Khanum, may I be thy 

 sacrifice ! Where hast thou gone ? " The Turk, awakened for the third time that 

 evening, thoroughly lost his temper. He jumped up, seized his kulah and found it 

 filthy. He put on his long boots and found them filthy. He seized his sword and 

 found the handle had been defiled. In a passion he ran to the platform where the 

 barber was and with a blow severed the man's neck. 



The woman leapt down into the middle of the stable and seizing the barber's head 

 began to press it to her bosom and weep false tears, sobbing out in feigned grief, " My 

 brother ! my brother !" All the people in the karavansara, young and old, lit their lamps 

 and crowded into the middle of the stable. They saw a woman weeping copiously. 

 " Oh woman," said they, " what has happened to you ? " " My brother was sick," 

 she said, " and he could not contain himself till he got outside * * * * 

 so this Turk killed him." The people attacked the Turk and seized and bound him 

 and kept him till the morning. 



In the morning they brought the Turk. In his saddle bags were two hundred 

 tumans which they gave, with the horse, to the woman as blood-money. 1 She then went 

 and brought six yards of longcloth and consigned the body of the barber to the earth. 

 Taking the barber's belongings and her own jewellery she put them in saddle-bags and 

 put the saddle bags on the horse and mounted and began to journey to Khwabjan. 



When she arrived she saw Haji still sitting and saying, " You spoke first. Come, 

 go and water the sheep." The woman came, drew a bucket of water and gave it to the 

 sheep. Then turning to her husband she said, " Oh husband ! all for the sake of one 

 bucket of water you have lost your beard and the barber has been killed, and I have got 

 a horse and two hundred tumans together with the goods of the barber." — And now 

 farewell, my tale is told. 



t Blood-money for a free Muslim (man) is io.ooo dirhams of silver or 1,000 dinars of gold. 



