Page:Tales from the Arabic, Vol 3.djvu/201

179 thy boat?” Quoth he, “The Commander of the Faithful hath commanded me to be here;” and he told me the story of the concubines and how the Khalif purposed to drown them that day. When I heard this from him, I brought out to him half a score dinars and discovered to him my case, whereupon quoth he to me, “O my brother, get thee empty calabashes, and when thy mistress cometh, give me to know of her and I will contrive the trick.”

I kissed his hand and thanked him, and as I was walking about, [waiting,] up came the guards and eunuchs with the women, who were weeping and crying out and taking leave of one another. The eunuchs cried out to us, whereupon we came with the boat, and they said to the boatman, “Who is this?” “This is my mate,” answered he, “[whom I have brought,] to help me, so one of us may keep the boat, whilst another doth your service.” Then they brought out to us the women, one by one, saying, “Throw them [in] by the Island;” and we answered, “It is well.” Now each of them was shackled and they had made a jar of sand fast about her neck. We did as the eunuchs bade us and ceased not to take the women, one after another, and cast them in, till they gave us my mistress and I winked to my comrade. So we took her and carried her out into mid-stream, where I gave her the empty calabashes and said to her, “Wait for me at the mouth of the canal.” Then