3/25/2003 7:00 pm
Monthly meeting
Location: Washington State Convention Center
2/4/2003 10:00 am
Richard Glover will update us on new tax laws and how they impact our clients.
Location: Conference Room A
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As he spoke the friends and relations of the unhappy pair began to
assemble. The body, decked in rich robes and sparkling with jewels, was laid
upon an open bier, and the procession started, taking its way to a high
mountain at some distance from the city, the wretched husband, clothed from
head to foot in a black mantle, following mournfully.
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When the place of interment was reached the corpse was lowered, just as
it was, into a deep pit. Then the husband, bidding farewell to all his
friends, stretched him-self upon another bier, upon which were laid seven
little loaves of bread and a pitcher of water, and he also was let
down-down-down to the depths of the horrible cavern, and then a stone was
laid over the opening, and the melancholy company wended its way back to the
city.
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You may imagine that I was no unmoved spectator of these proceedings; to
all the others it was a thing to which they had been accustomed from their
youth up; but I was so horrified that I could not help telling the king how
it struck me.
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"Sire," I said, "I am more astonished than I can express to you at the
strange custom which exists in your dominions of burying the living with the
dead. In all my travels I have never before met with so cruel and horrible a
law."
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"What would you have, Sindbad?" he replied. "It is the law for everybody. I
myself should be buried with the Queen if she were the first to die."
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"But, your Majesty," said I, "dare I ask if this law applies to foreigners
also?"
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"Why, yes," replied the king smiling, in what I could but consider a very
heartless manner, "they are no exception to the rule if they have married in
the country."
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When I heard this I went home much cast down, and from that time forward
my mind was never easy. If only my wife's little finger ached I fancied she
was going to die, and sure enough before very long she fell really ill and
in a few days breathed her last. My dismay was great, for it seemed to me
that to be buried alive was even a worse fate than to be devoured by
cannibals, nevertheless there was no escape. The body of my wife, arrayed in
her richest robes and decked with all her jewels, was laid upon the bier. I
followed it, and after me came a great procession, headed by the king and
all his nobles, and in this order we reached the fatal mountain, which was
one of a lofty chain bordering the sea.
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Here I made one more frantic effort to excite the pity of the king and
those who stood by, hoping to save myself even at this last moment, but it
was of no avail. No one spoke to me, they even appeared to hasten over their
dreadful task, and I speedily found myself descending into the gloomy pit,
with my seven loaves and pitcher of water beside me. Almost before I reached
the bottom the stone was rolled into its place above my head, and I was left
to my fate. A feeble ray of light shone into the cavern through some chink,
and when I had the courage to look about me I could see that I was in a vast
vault, bestrewn with bones and bodies of the dead. I even fancied that I
heard the expiring sighs of those who, like myself, had come into this
dismal place alive. All in vain did I shriek aloud with rage and despair,
reproaching myself for the love of gain and adventure which had brought me
to such a pass, but at length, growing calmer, I took up my bread and water,
and wrapping my face in my mantle I groped my way towards the end of the
cavern, where the air was fresher.
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Continued
