own on the steps of
a mosque and waited there until night had set in. Then he went through
the bazar and into the street mentioned by the robbers, and hid himself
behind a projection of one of the houses. He might have stood there an
hour, when he heard two men coming slowly down the street. At first he
thought it must be the caliph and his grand vizier; but one of the men
clapped his hands, and immediately two other men hurried very
noiselessly up the street from the bazar. They whispered together for a
while, and then separated; three hiding not far from Said, while the
fourth paced up and down the street. The night was very dark, but
still, so that Said had to depend almost entirely upon his acute sense
of hearing.

Another half-hour had passed, when footsteps were heard coming from the
bazar. The robber must have heard them too, for he stole by Said
towards the bazar. The steps came nearer, and Said was just able to
make out some dark figures, when the robber clapped his hands, and, in
the same moment, the three men waiting in ambush rushed out. The
persons attacked must have been armed, for Said heard the ring of
clashing swords. At once he drew his own Damascus blade, and sprang
upon the robber's with the cry: "Down with the enemies of the great
Haroun!" He struck one of them to the ground with the first blow, and
turned upon two others, who were just in the act of disarming a man
over whom they had thrown a rope. Said lifted the rope blindly in order
to cut it, but in the effort to use his sword he struck one of the
robber's arms such a blow, as to cut off his hand, and the robber fell
to his knees with cries of pain. The fourth robber, who had been
fighting with another man, now came towards Said, who was still engaged
with the third, but the man who had been lassoed no sooner found
himself free than he drew his dagger, and, from one side, plunged it
into the breast of the advancing robber. When the remaining robber saw
this, he threw away his sword and fled.

Said did not remain long in doubt as to whom he had saved, for the
taller of the two men said: "The one thing is as strange as the other;
this attack upon my life or liberty, as the incomprehensible assistance
and rescue. How did you know who I was? Did you know of the scheme of
these robbers?"

"Ruler of the Faithful," answered Said, "for I do not doubt that you
are he, I walked down the street El Malek this evening behind some men,
whose strange and