Caliph, and Ja'afar answered, "O Commander of the Faithful, give
it to me and I'll fry it for them." "By the tombs of my
forbears," quoth the Caliph, "none shall fry it but I, with mine
own hand!" So he went to the gardener's hut, where he searched
and found all that he required, even to salt and saffron and wild
marjoram and else besides. Then he turned to the brasier and,
setting on the frying-pan, fried a right good fry. When it was
done, he laid it on a banana-leaf, and gathering from the garden
wind-fallen fruits, limes and lemons, carried the fish to the
pavilion and set the dish before them. So the youth and the
damsel and Shaykh Ibrahim came forward and ate; after which they
washed their hands and Nur al-Din said to the Caliph, "By Allah,
O fisherman, thou hast done us a right good deed this night."
Then he put hand in pouch and, taking out three of the dinars
which Sanjar had given him, said, "O fisherman, excuse me. By
Allah had I known thee before that which hath lately befallen me,
I had done away the bitterness of poverty from thy heart; but
take thou this as the best I can do for thee." Then he threw the
gold pieces to the Caliph, who took them and kissed them and put
them in pouch. Now his sole object in doing all this was to hear
the damsel sing; so he said to Nur al-Din, "Thou hast rewarded me
most liberally, but I beg of thy boundless bounty that thou let
this damsel sing an air, that I may hear her."[FN#58] So Nur al-
Din said, "O Anis al-Jalis!" and she answered "Yes!" and he
continued, "By my life, sing us something for the sake of this
fisherman who wisheth so much to hear thee." Thereupon she took
the lute and struck the strings, after she had screwed them tight
and tuned them, and sang these improvised verses,

"The fawn of a maid hent her lute in hand * And her music made us