inally succeeded. The youth thanked him for his life, for he saw
clearly that without the interposition of this man he would have
perished miserably; and as he had neither the means of getting away,
nor the desire to wander over the desert on foot and alone, he
gratefully accepted the offer of a seat on one of the merchant's
heavily-laden camels, and decided to go to Bagdad with the merchant,
with the chance of finding there a company bound for Balsora, which he
could join.

On the journey, the merchant related to his travelling companion
a great many stories about the excellent Ruler of the Faithful,
Haroun-al-Raschid. He told anecdotes showing the caliph's love of
justice and his shrewdness, and how he was able to smooth out the
knottiest questions of law in a simple and admirable way; and among
others he related the story of the rope-maker, and the story of the jar
of olives,--tales that every child now knows, but which astonished
Said.

"Our master, the Ruler of the Faithful," continued the merchant, "is a
wonderful man. If you have an idea that he sleeps like the common
people, you are very much mistaken. Two or three hours at day-break is
all the sleep he takes. I am positive of that, for Messour, his head
chamberlain, is my cousin; and although he is as silent as the grave
concerning the secrets of his master, he will now and then let a hint
drop, for kinship's sake, if he sees that one is nearly out of his
senses with curiosity. Instead, then, of sleeping like other people,
the caliph steals through the streets of Bagdad at night; and seldom
does a week pass that he does not chance upon an adventure; for you
must know--as is made clear by the story of the jar of olives, which is
as true as the word of the Prophet,--that he does not make his rounds
with the watch, or on horseback in full costume, his way lighted by a
hundred torch-bearers, as he might very well do if he chose, but he
goes about disguised sometimes as a merchant, sometimes as a mariner,
at other times as a soldier, and again as a mufti, and looks around to
see if every thing is right and in order. And therefore it happens that
in no other town is one so polite towards every fool upon whom he
stumbles on the street at night, as in Bagdad; for it would be as
likely to turn out the caliph as a dirty Arab from the desert, and
there is wood enough growing round to give every person in and around
Bagdad the bastinado."

Thus spake the merchant; and