Then the thieves addressed themselves to sharing their booty and presently fell out concerning a sword that was among the spoil, who should take it.  Quoth the captain, ’Methinks we were better prove it; so, if it be good, we shall know its worth, and if it be ill, we shall know that.’  And they said, ’Try it on this dead man, for he is fresh.’  So the captain took the sword and drawing it, poised it and brandished it; but, when Er Razi saw this, he made sure of death and said in himself, ’I have borne the washing and the boiling water and the pricking with the knife and the grave and its straitness and all this [beating], trusting in God that I might be delivered from death, and [hitherto] I have been delivered; but, as for the sword, I may not brook that, for but one stroke of it, and I am a dead man.’

So saying, he sprang to his feet and catching up the thigh-bone of one of the dead, cried out at the top of his voice, saying, ’O ye dead, take them!’ And he smote one of them, whilst his comrade [El Merouzi] smote another and they cried out at them and buffeted them on the napes of their necks; whereupon the thieves left that which was with them of plunder and fled; and indeed their wits forsook them [for terror] and they stayed not in their flight till they came forth of the Magians’ burial-ground and left it a parasang’s length behind them, when they halted, trembling and affrighted for the soreness of that which had betided them of fear and amazement at the dead.

As for Er Razi and El Merouzi, they made peace with each other and sat down to share the booty.  Quoth El Merouzi, ’I will not give thee a dirhem of this money, till thou pay me my due of the money that is in thy house.’  And Er Razi said ’I will not do it, nor will I subtract this from aught of my due.’  So they fell out upon this and disputed with one another and each went saying to his fellow, ‘I will not give thee a dirhem!’ And words ran high between them and contention was prolonged.

Meanwhile, when the thieves halted, one of them said to the others, ‘Let us return and see;’ and the captain said, ’This thing is impossible of the dead:  never heard we that they came to life on this wise.  So let us return and take our good, for that the dead have no occasion for good.’  And they were divided in opinion as to returning:  but [presently they came to a decision and] said, ’Indeed, our arms are gone and we cannot avail against them and will not draw near the place where they are:  only let one of us [go thither and] look at it, and if he hear no sound of them, let him advertise us what we shall do.’  So they agreed that they should send a man of them and assigned him [for this service] two parts [of the booty].