Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 7.djvu/339

 KHELIF THE FISHERMAN OF BAGHDAD.

There was once, of old days and in bygone ages and times, in the city of Baghdad, a fisherman, by name Khelif, a man of many words and little luck. One day, as he sat in his lodging, he bethought himself and said, ‘There is no power and no virtue save in God the Most High, the Supreme! I wonder what is my offence in the sight of my Lord and [the cause of] the blackness of my fortune and my little luck among the fishermen, albeit I dare say there is not in the city of Baghdad a fisherman like myself.’ Now he lodged in a ruined place called a khan, to wit, an inn, without a door, and when he went forth to fish, he would shoulder the net, without basket or knife, and the folk would look at him and say to him, ‘O Khelif, why dost thou not take with thee a basket, to hold the fish thou catchest?’ Quoth he, ‘Even as it went forth empty, so would it come back, for I never take aught.’

One night he arose, in the darkness before dawn, and taking his net on his shoulder, raised his eyes to heaven and said, ‘O my God, O Thou who subjectedst the sea to Moses son of Amran, provide Thou me, for Thou art the best of providers!’ Then he [went down to the Tigris and] spreading his net, cast it into the river and waited till it had settled down, when he pulled it in and drawing it ashore, found in it a dead dog. So he freed the net