Page:Jewish Fairy Book (Gerald Friedlander).djvu/40

24 box. I found the key in the lock and I opened the box. It is full of pearls and diamonds."

"What do you propose?" they asked him. "Speak, for you are our leader."

"My plan," he answered, "is very simple. Tomorrow when we are on the high seas, far away from the coast, one of us will start a conversation with the merchant and lead him to the side of the ship. I will keep watch, and when he is looking out to sea, I will run across the deck and fall against him and throw him into the water. When the son learns of his father's death he will be overwhelmed with grief. It will then be very easy for one of us to enter the cabin and to remove the jewels from the box, leaving the latter in its place in the cabin."

"How about the spoil?" they asked.

"Naturally we will divide," said he, "all we obtain quite fairly. There are seven of us and we will each have an equal share. This will be enough. We shall all be rich, and we can give up our wretched life on the water and start afresh when we reach port."

"We agree," they cried unanimously.

The merchant had not lost a single word of this very interesting proposal. He smiled and said to himself,—

"Well does the proverb say: 'Man proposes, but God disposes.' How am I to outwit these thieves?"

He walked up and down the deck, thinking as