283
taught me to fish, I will give him a gold dinar for it!’ So the crier proclaimed among the troops that they should go forth and buy fish for the Khalif, and they all arose and made for the river-side. So, while Khelifeh was awaiting for the Khalif’s return with the two frails, the guards swooped down upon him like vultures and took the fish and wrapped them in gold-embroidered handkerchiefs, beating one another in their eagerness. Whereupon quoth Khelifeh, ‘Doubtless these are of the fish of Paradise!’ and taking two fish in each hand, plunged into the water up to his neck and fell a-saying, ‘O God, by the virtue of these fish, let Thy servant the piper, my partner, come to me forthwith!’
At this moment up came the chief of the Khalif’s black slaves, who had tarried behind the rest, by reason of his horse having stopped to stale by the way, and finding all the fish gone, looked right and left, till he espied Khelifeh standing in the water, with the fish in his hands, and said to him, ‘Come hither, O fisherman!’ But Khelifeh answered, ‘Begone and meddle not with what doth not concern thee!’ So the eunuch went up to him and said, ‘Give me the fish and I will pay thee their price.’ ‘Art thou little of wit?’ replied the fisherman. ‘I will not sell them.’ Therewith the eunuch drew his mace upon him, and Khelifeh cried out, saying, ‘Hold thy hand, wretch that thou art! Better largesse than the mace.’[1] So saying, he threw the fish to the eunuch, who took them and laid them in his handkerchief. Then he put his hand in his pocket, but found not a single dirhem and said to Khelifeh, ‘O fisherman, verily, thou art out of luck; for, by Allah, I have not a rap about me! But come to-morrow to the palace of the Khalifate and ask
- ↑ i.e. better make thee a present of the fish than have my crown cracked with the mace.
