Once upon a time in Kashgar, there lived a tailor and his wife who loved each other dearly. One day, a little hunchback came and sat outside the tailor’s shop and sang, playing upon a tambourine.
The tailor enjoyed his songs so much that he took him home to let him meet his wife. She had just laid the table for dinner. So, they invited the little hunchback to share their meal.
His wife had cooked some delicious fish and they all were enjoying the meal when, suddenly, a fish’s bone got stuck in the hunchback’s throat. He choked on it and died. The tailor and his wife were frightened. If the police came to know, they would blame the tailor and his wife and arrest them!
The two of them decided to take him to the house of a doctor in the neighbourhood. They carried the hunchback there through the dark streets and, when the servant came to the door, they gave her some money.
“Give this to the doctor, please and ask him to take care of this very sick man,” said the tailor.
When the servant went in to call the doctor, the tailor and his wife propped up the man on the steps and ran away. The doctor came out and, in the dim light on the stairs, he fell and hit the little hunchback.
When he picked himself up from the bottom of the steps, he found the hunchback too had fallen. He called for a light and saw that his patient was dead.
‘I’ve killed him!’ thought the doctor. He consulted his wife who was equally terrified. But she thought it better to put the body into the house of their neighbour.
“He supplies oil and butter to the Sultan and is, therefore, quite powerful,” she said, “He will be able to get off easily!”
So, the doctor and his wife went up to the roof of their own house and lowered the body into the house of the supplier near his storehouse.
The supplier kept all the eatables that he supplied in a storehouse, which was infested rats and mice. He was fed up of chasing them off. He returned late that night and in the darkness he saw the man standing near the wall.
‘Aha! So it’s you who is stealing the food, not the rats!’ thought the supplier. Picking up a cudgel, he gave a blow to the hunchback.
The man crumpled up and fell. The supplier fetched a light and saw that the little hunchback was quite dead.
“Oh, heavens!” exclaimed the supplier, “I had better get rid of the body, or I’ll be in trouble!”
Lifting the hunchback he carried him to the market where he stood him up against the door of a shop. A drunken merchant was returning from a party, walking unsteadily down the road. He knocked into the hunchback at the shop door and both of them fell.
“How dare you knock me down?” said the drunk merchant and hit the hunchback. “Police!” he called, “This man has hit me!” The night guard arrived and realised the hunchback was dead.
“You have killed him!” the guard said and hauled the merchant off to prison. In the morning, he was produced before a judge. The judge remembered that the hunchback had entertained the Sultan too.
It was decided that the merchant must be executed for the murder. A gallows was set up in the market square to hang the merchant and the news spread across the city.
The supplier heard about it and came running while the noose was being put around the merchant’s neck.
“Stop! Stop!” he yelled, “It was I who killed him, not the merchant!” He explained how he had carried the hunchback to the shop and left him there.
So, in place of the merchant, the supplier was to die. When the doctor heard of the execution, he too had run to the market square.
“Why should an innocent man die for my crime?” he exclaimed and immediately he confessed that he had been responsible for the death of the hunchback, not the supplier. He explained how in the dark they had crashed down the stairs.
The supplier was let off after some time but now the doctor was to be hanged.
Meanwhile, the tailor had reached there, having heard of the execution.
“Sir, wait!” he shouted, running towards the policeman, “I’ll tell you what happened!” He narrated how he had taken the hunchback home and how the man had choked on the fish’s bone and died.
The Sultan had learnt of the things that happened at the execution and called for all the fellows to be produced before him.
So, a procession set off from the marketplace with the four accused men carrying the little hunchback, guarded by the policemen and followed by the crowd.
The Sultan was struck by the strange events and ordered that they should be written down. The four men were pardoned by the Sultan.
