Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/293

259 with the utmost honour and furnished them with all they needed, feeding them upon fish.

They abode thus three days, at the end of which time he bade his divers fetch some of the vessels of Solomon from out the sea. So they dived and brought up twelve vessels, whereat the Amir and his company rejoiced in the accomplishment of the Khalif’s need. Then Mousa gave the King of the blacks many and great gifts, and he in turn made him a present of wonders of the deep, being fish in human form, saying, ‘Your entertainment these three days has been of these fish.’ Quoth the Amir, ‘Needs must we carry some of these to the Khalif, for they will please him more than the vessels of Solomon.’

Then they took leave of the black king and setting out on their homeward journey, travelled till they came to Damascus, when Mousa went in to the Commander of the Faithful and told him all that they had seen and heard, together with the manner of the death of Talib ben Sehl; and the Khalif said, ‘Would I had been with you, that I might have seen what you saw!’ Then he took the brazen vessels and opened them, one after another, whereupon the devils came forth of them, saying, ‘We repent, O prophet of God! Never again will we return to the like of this thing.’ And the Khalif marvelled at this, saying, ‘Never gave God unto any man the like of that which He bestowed upon Solomon, son of David!’ As for the mermaids, they made them tanks of wood, full of water, and laid them therein; but they died of the great heat.

Then the Khalif divided the spoils of the Brazen City among the faithful, and the Amir Mousa sought leave of him to appoint his son governor of Africa in his stead, that he might betake himself to the holy city of Jerusalem, there to worship God. So the Commander of the Faithful