ook everything, even to the
attendance of the attendants and great officers, so much as a matter of
course, that I feel persuaded," said the Chamberlain, "that he must be
a very great personage, perhaps even a king, in his own country."

This account of the strangers given by his Grand Chamberlain inflamed
the curiosity of Selim to the highest degree, and the next morning
early he seated himself on his throne in the great audience-chamber of
his palace, and commanded that the two strangers should be brought
before him.

When they were come he inquired who they were, and where they were
going when they encountered the storm that had wrecked their vessel.
To this the Caliph, who in the new robes that had been supplied them
looked a man of great dignity and good breeding, replied by announcing
that he was the Caliph Haroun Alraschid, and relating all that had
occurred from the time he entered the caravanserai at Bussora until the
time when the pirate ship was wrecked.

When King Selim heard that the man before him was the renowned Caliph
Haroun Alraschid, whose fame had spread throughout all the world, he,
being a good Moslim, came down off his high throne, and, making
obeisance to the Commander of the Faithful--"Sire," said he, "a happy
day is this for your servant that he should be privileged to see your
face or to do aught for your illustrious Majesty. And first, say by
what death does it please you that this vile pirate and traitor shall
die?"

The captain, who from conversations he had held with the Caliph during
their journey since the wreck had become convinced of the true position
and rank of his captive, stood silent with bowed head awaiting his
sentence.

King Selim having led Haroun Alraschid up the steps of the throne and
seated him upon it, would himself have stood upon the steps, but the
Caliph bade him come up and be seated by his side.

Then, looking towards the captain of the pirates, who had already been
seized by the king's officers, he said, "Although this man has
committed that which is very worthy of death, yet because God, the most
Merciful, has spared him in the tempest and the wreck, I also will
spare him this once; therefore give him a hundred pieces of gold that
he may not be tempted by poverty further to do wrong, and let him go."

When this magnanimous sentence had been pronounced, the pirate captain
laid his hand upon his beard and, bowing his head, said to the Caliph,
"O Commander o