Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/354

338 came up, with the basket full of all kinds of precious stones and jewels. The fisherman set it on his head and went away; and when he came to the baker’s shop, the latter said to him, ‘O my lord, I have baked thee forty brioshes and have sent them to thy house; and now I will bake wastel-bread, and as soon as it is done, I will bring it to the house and go and fetch thee meat and vegetables.’

Abdallah gave him three handsful of jewels out of the basket and going home, set it down there. Then he took a jewel of price of each sort and going to the jewel-bazaar, stopped at the Syndic’s shop and said to him, ‘Buy these jewels of me.’ ‘Show them to me,’ said the Syndic. So he showed them to him and the jeweller said, ‘Hast thou other than these?’ ‘Yes,’ answered Abdallah, ‘I have a basketful at home.’ ‘And where is thy house?’ asked the Syndic. ‘In such a quarter,’ replied the fisherman; whereupon the Syndic took the jewels from him and said to his servants, ‘Lay hold of him, for he is the thief who stole the queen’s jewels.’ And he bade beat him. So they beat him and bound his hands behind him; after which the Syndic and all the people of the jewel-market arose and set out [to carry him to the king], saying, ‘We have gotten the thief.’ Quoth one, ‘None robbed such an one but this knave,’ and another, ‘It was none but he stole all that was in such an one’s house;’ and some said this and some that.

But he was silent and spoke not a word nor answered any of them, till they brought him before the king, to whom said the Syndic, ‘O king of the age, when the queen’s necklace was stolen, thou sentest to acquaint us therewith, requiring of us the discovery of the culprit; wherefore I strove beyond the rest of the folk and have taken the thief for thee. Here he is before thee, and