him with a couple of frails and a matchet. [FN#224] Then we are
to go, I and he, to the market and sell the fish and share the
price." Ja'afar rejoined, "O Commander of the Faithful, I will
bring you a purchaser for your fish." And Al-Rashid retorted, "O
Ja'afar, by the virtue of my holy forefathers, whoso bringeth me
one of the fish that are before Khalifah, who taught me angling,
I will give him for it a gold dinar." So the crier proclaimed
among the troops that they should go forth and buy fish for the
Caliph, and they all arose and made for the river-side. Now,
while Khalifah was expecting the Caliph's return with the two
frails, behold, the Mamelukes swooped down upon him like vultures
and took the fish and wrapped them in gold-embroidered kerchiefs,
beating one another in their eagerness to get at the Fisherman.
Whereupon quoth Khalifah, "Doubtless these are of the fish of
Paradise!" [FN#225] and hending two fish in right hand and left,
plunged into the water up to his neck and fell a-saying, "O
Allah, by the virtue of these fish, let Thy servant the piper, my
partner, come to me at this very moment." And suddenly up to him
came a black slave which was the chief of the Caliph's negro
eunuchs. He had tarried behind the rest, by reason of his horse
having stopped to make water by the way, and finding that naught
remained of the fish, little or much, looked right and left, till
he espied Khalifah standing in the stream, with a fish in either
hand, and said to him, "Come hither, O Fisherman!" But Khalifah
replied, "Begone and none of your impudence!" [FN#226] So the
eunuch went up to him and said, "Give me the fish and I will pay
thee their price." Replied the Fisherman, "Art thou little of
wit? I will not sell them." Therewith the eunuch drew his mace
upon him, and Khalifah cried out, saying, "Strike not, O loon!
Better largesse than the mace." [FN#227] So saying, he threw the