Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/350

334 he will without fail demand his due.’ ‘Hath he vexed thee with words?’ asked his wife. ‘Nay,’ answered Abdallah; ‘on the contrary, he still refuses to reckon with me, saying, “[Wait] till good luck betide thee.”’ And his wife said, ‘If he press thee, say to him, “[Wait] till there come the good luck for which we hope, thou and I.”’ ‘And when will the good luck come that we hope for?’ asked the fisherman. ‘God is bountiful,’ answered she; and he said, ‘Thou sayst sooth.’

Then he shouldered his net and went down to the sea-side, saying, ‘O Lord, provide Thou me, though but with one fish, that I may give it to the baker!’ And he cast his net into the sea and pulling it in, found it heavy; so he tugged at it till, after sore travail, he got it ashore and found in it a dead ass, swollen and stinking; whereat his soul sickened and he freed it from the net, saying, ‘There is no power and no virtue save in God the Most High, the Supreme! Verily, I can no more! I say to yonder woman, “There is no more provision for me in the sea; let me leave this craft.” And she still answers me, “God is bountiful: good will betide thee.” Is this dead ass the good of which she speaks?’ And he was sore chagrined.

Then he removed to another place, so he might be quit of the stench of the dead ass, and cast his net there. He waited awhile, then drew it in and found it heavy; whereupon quoth he, ‘Good; we are hauling up all the dead asses in the sea and ridding it of its rubbish.’ However he gave not over tugging at the net, till the blood streamed from the palms of his hands, and when he got it ashore, he saw a man in it and took him for one of the Afrits of the lord Solomon, whom he was wont to imprison in vessels of brass and cast into the sea, supposing that the vessel had burst for length of years and that the Afrit