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 the fish of
Paradise!" and hending two fish 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, came 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!" 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.
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