'
'I hear and obey,' answered Jaafer. So they rose at once and
putting off the rich clothes they wore, donned merchants' habits
and sallied forth, the Khalif and Jaafer and Mesrour the
headsman. They walked from place to place, till they came to the
Tigris and saw an old man sitting in a boat; so they went up to
him and saluting him, said, 'O old man, we desire thee of thy
favour to carry us a-pleasuring down the river, in this thy boat,
and take this dinar to thy hire.' 'Who may go a-pleasuring on the
Tigris?' replied the boatman. 'Seeing that the Khalif every night
comes down the stream in his barge, and with him one crying
aloud, "Ho, all ye people, great and small, gentle and simple,
men and boys, whoso is found in a boat on the Tigris [by night],
I will strike off his head or hang him to the mast of his boat!"
And ye had well-nigh met him; for here comes his barge.' But the
Khalif and Jaafer said, 'O old man, take these two dinars, and
when thou seest the Khalif's barge approaching, run us under one
of the arches, that we may hide there till he have passed. 'Hand
over the money,' replied the boatman; 'and on God the Most High
be our dependence!' So they gave him the two dinars and embarked
in the boat; and he put off and rowed about with them awhile,
till they saw the barge coming down the river in mid-stream, with
lighted flambeaux and cressets therein.
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