Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/49

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Then he said, ‘Courage! I shall have better luck next time, please God!’ And repeated the following verses:

So saying, he threw out the dead ass and wrung the net and spread it out. Then he went down into the sea and cast again, saying, ‘In the name of God!’ and waited till the net had settled down in the water, when he pulled the cords and finding it was heavy and resisted more than before, thought it was full of fish. So he made it fast to the shore and stripped and dived into the water round the net, till he got it free. Then he hauled at it till he brought it ashore, but found in it nothing but a great jar full of sand and mud. When he saw this, he groaned aloud and repeated the following verses:

Then he threw out the jar and wrung out and cleansed his net: after which he asked pardon of God the Most