"When we got back to Bagdad from this most unlucky campaign, our money being almost exhausted, I called again upon Moussa, and, relating to him what had befallen us, I asked him once more to make a fair and equitable division of the inheritance with us. But he once more refused to do so, repeated his assertion that all the property had been left to him, offered me a hundred dinars, which I angrily refused, and sent a slave to guide me, as he said, into the quarter of the town where I was then living. He evidently made a sign to the slave whom he sent with me, for I quickly perceived that he was conducting me, not towards that part of the town in which my caravanserai was situated, but along the steep streets leading down to the river. When we got on to the bank of the stream, and almost at the water's edge, he said he must return to his master, telling me to continue straight forward, and that I should find the road all clear. Greatly incensed at the perfidy of this villainous slave, I suddenly seized him and flung him into the river before me.
"I was about to retrace my steps, when a voice near to me exclaimed: 'Halloo! some one has cast himself into the river, and my nets will be destroyed.'
"'Cannot you see,' I said, 'that I threw that scoundrel into the river?'
"'Nay,' said the voice, 'I cannot see, for I am blind.'
"'Allah be merciful to us!' I cried. 'Art thou also blind?' And I told him my history as you have heard it, and why I had flung the slave into the water. By the way, what became of the fellow I know not—he was probably carried away by the stream, for I heard no more of him.
"Then I asked the blind man what it was that he had said of his nets being broken.
"He answered, 'I am a fisherman, and I doubt not but the rascal will have destroyed some of my nets, but never mind that, so long as he got his deserts.'
"'What! can a man that is blind be a fisherman?' I exclaimed.
"'Certainly,' he replied; 'I have caught fish for my living this ten years, and I will teach you to fish, if you like.'
"I thanked him, and gratefully accepted his offer."