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contradicting me.” I said to him, “What does your majesty desire of me, for I cannot deny you, since I am indebted to you for your favors, benefits, and kindness, and, praise be to God, I have become one of your servants.” He said, “I wish to marry you among us to a lovely, elegant, and charming woman, a woman of beauty and wealth, and you shall reside with us and live with me in my palace. Therefore, do not deny me or argue with me.” When I heard the king’s words, I remained silent, for I was too embarrassed to say anything. He said, “Son, why don’t you answer me?” I replied, “Mylord and king of the age, the command is yours.” So he immediately summoned the judge and the witnesses and married me to a fine lady of high rank, noble birth, great lineage, surpassing beauty, and abundant wealth, possessing a great many buildings and dwellings. Then he gave me a great, beautiful house, standing alone, and gave me servants and attendants, and assigned me stipends and supplies. So I lived in the utmost ease, contentment, and happiness and forgot all the weariness, trouble, and hardship I had suffered. I said to myself, “If I ever go back to my country, I will take her with me. But whatever is predestined to happen will happen, and no one knows what will befall him,” for I loved her and she loved me very much, and we lived in harmony, enjoying great prosperity and happiness.
    One day, God the Almighty caused the wife of my neighbor, who was one of my companions, to die, and I went to see him to offer my condolences for the loss of his wife and found him in a sorry plight, anxious, weary, and distracted. I offered my condolences and began to comfort him, saying, “Don’t mourn for your wife. God the Almighty will compensate you with a better wife and will grant you a long life, if it be His will.” He wept bitterly, saying, “O my friend, how will God compensate me with a better wife, when I have only one day to live?” I said, “Friend, be rational and do not prophecy your own death, for you are well and in good health.” He said, “By your life, brother, tomorrow you will lose me and never in your life will you see me again.” I asked, “How so?” He said, “Today, they will bury my wife and bury me with her in the tomb, for it is the custom of our country, when the wife dies, to bury the husband alive with her, and when the husband dies, to bury the wife alive with him, in order that neither of them may enjoy life after the other.” I said to him, “By God, this is a most vile custom, and no one should endure it.”
    While we were conversing, most of the people of the city came, offered their condolences for the death of my friend’s wife and his own death, and began to prepare her, according to their custom. They brought a coffin and, placing the woman in it, carried her and took her husband with them, outside the city, until they reached a place in the side of a mountain by the sea. They advanced to a spot and lifted from it a large stone, revealing a stone-lined well. They threw the woman down into that well, which seemed to lead into a vast cavern beneath the mountain. Then they brought the husband and, tying a rope of palm fibers under his armpits, let him down the well, with a jug of sweet water and seven loaves of bread. When he was down, he undid the rope, and they drew it up, covered the mouth of the well with that large stone as it was before, and went on their way, leaving my friend with his wife in the cavern.
    I said to myself, “By God, this death is worse than the first.” Then I went to the king and said to him, “O my lord, why do you bury the living with the dead in your country?” He replied, “It is the custom of our country, when the husband dies, to bury his wife alive with him, and when the wife dies, to bury her husband alive with her, so that they may always be