third Moor, riding on a mule with saddle bags and still more richly accoutred than the first two, who said to him, “Peace be with thee, O Judar, O son of Omar!” And the fisherman saying in himself, “How comes it that they all know me?” returned his salute.  Asked the Maghribi, “Have any Moors passed by here?” “Two,” answered Judar.  “Whither went they?” enquired the Moor, and Judar replied, “I pinioned their hands behind them and cast them into the lake, where they were drowned, and the same fate is in store for thee.”  The Moor laughed and rejoined, saying, “O unhappy!  Every life hath its term appointed.”  Then he alighted and gave the fisherman the silken cord, saying, “Do with me, O Judar, as thou didst with them.”  Said Judar, “Put thy hands behind thy back, that I may pinion thee, for I am in haste, and time flies.”  So he put his hands behind him and Judar tied him up and cast him in.  Then he waited awhile; presently the Moor thrust both hands forth of the water and called out to him, saying, “Ho, good fellow, cast out thy net!” So Judar threw the net over him and drew him ashore, and lo! in each hand he held a fish as red as coral.  Quoth the Moor, “Bring me the two caskets that are in the saddle bags.”  So Judar brought them and opened them to him, and he laid in each casket a fish and shut them up.  Then he pressed Judar to his bosom and kissed him on the right cheek and the left, saying, “Allah save thee from all stress!  By the Almighty, hadst thou not cast the net over me and pulled me out, I should have kept hold of these two fishes till I sank and was drowned, for I could not get ashore of myself.”  Quoth Judar, “O my lord the pilgrim, Allah upon thee, tell me the true history of the two drowned men and the truth anent these two fishes and the Jew.”—­And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

          When it was the Six Hundred and Tenth Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Judar asked the Maghribi, saying, “Prithee tell me first of the drowned men,” the Maghribi answered, “Know, O Judar, that these drowned men were my two brothers, by name Abd al-Salam and Abd al- Ahad.  My own name is Abd al-Samad, and the Jew also is our brother; his name is Abd al-Rahim and he is no Jew but a true believer of the Maliki school.  Our father, whose name was Abd al-Wadud,[FN#268] taught us magic and the art of solving mysteries and bringing hoards to light, and we applied ourselves thereto, till we compelled the Ifrits and Marids of the Jinn to do us service.  By and by, our sire died and left us much wealth, and we divided amongst us his treasures and talismans, till we came to the books, when we fell out over a volume called ’The Fables of the Ancients,’ whose like is not in the world, nor can its price be paid of any, nor is its value to be evened with gold and jewels; for in it are particulars of all the hidden hoards of the earth and the solution of every secret.  Our father