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“No,” whined the justice; “I listened only to Kalum’s testimony, because he was a respectable man.”

“Did I place you as a judge over all that you might listen only to the people of rank?” demanded Haroun-al-Raschid, with noble scorn. “I will banish you for ten years to a desert island in the middle of the sea; there you can reflect on justice. And you, miserable wretch, who bring the dying back to life, not in order to rescue them, but to make them your slaves–you will pay down, as I said before, the thousand tomans that you promised if Said were only present to be called as witness.”

Kalum congratulated himself at having got out of a very bad scrape so easily, and was just going to thank the kind caliph, when Haroun continued: “For the perjury you committed about the hundred gold pieces, you will receive a hundred lashes on the soles of your feet. Further than this Said will have the choice of taking your shop and its contents and you as a porter, or of contenting himself with ten gold pieces for every day’s work he did for you.”

“Let the wretch go, Caliph!” cried the youth; “I would not take anything that ever belonged to him.”

“No,” replied Haroun, “I prefer that you should be compensated. I will choose for you the ten gold pieces a day, and you can reckon up how many days you were in his claws. Away with this wretch!”

The two offenders were led away, and the caliph conducted Benezar and Said to another apartment, where he related to Benezar his rescue by Said, interrupted by the shrieks of Kalum-Bek, upon the soles of whose feet a hundred gold pieces of full weight were being counted out.

The caliph invited Benezar to come to Bagdad and live with him and Said. Benezar consented, and made only one more journey home in order to fetch his large possessions. Said lived in the palace which the grateful caliph built for him, like a prince. The caliph’s brother and grand vizier’s son were his constant companions; and it soon became a proverb in Bagdad: “I would that I were as good and as fortunate as Said, the son of Benezar.”

“I could keep awake for two or three nights without experiencing the least sensation of sleepiness, with such entertainment,” said the compass-maker, when the huntsman had concluded. “And I have often proved the truth of what I say. I was once apprentice to a bell-founder. The master was a rich man and no miser, and therefore our wonder was all the more aroused on a certain occasion, when we had a big job on hand, by a display of parsimony on his part. A bell was being cast for a new church, and we apprentices had to sit up all night and keep the fire up. We did not doubt that the master would tap a cask of the best wine for us. But we were mistaken. He began to talk about his travels, and to tell all manner of stories of his life; then the head apprentice’s turn came, and so on through the whole row of us, and none of us got sleepy, so intent were we all in listening. Before we knew it, day was at hand. Then we perceived the master’s stratagem of keeping us awake by telling stories; for when the bell was done he did not spare his wine, but brought out what he had wisely saved on those nights.”

“He was a sensible man,” said the student. “There is no remedy for sleepiness like conversation. And I should not have cared to sit alone to-night, for about eleven o’clock I should have succumbed to sleep.”

“The peasantry have found that out also,” said the huntsman. “In the long Winter evenings the women and girls do not remain alone at home to spin, lest they should fall asleep in the middle of their task; but a large number of them meet together, in a well-lighted room, and tell stories over their work.”