I was passing one day in the market, when I found that a robber
had broken into the shop of a shroff, a changer of monies, and
thence taken a casket, wherewith he had made off to the
burialground. Accordingly I followed him thither and came up to
him, as he opened the casket and fell a-looking into it;
whereupon I accosted him, saying, "Peace be on you!"[FN#112] And
he was startled at me; so I left him and went away from him. Some
months after this, I met him again under arrest, in the midst of
the guards and "men of violence,"[FN#113] and he said to them,
"Seize this man." So they laid hands on me and carried me to the
Chief of Police, who said, "What hast thou to do with this
wight?" The robber turned to me and looking a long while in my
face, asked, "Who took this man?" and the officer answered, "Thou
badest us take him; so we took him." And he cried, "I ask refuge
of Allah! I know not this man, nor knoweth he me; and I said not
that to you but of a person other than this." So they released
me, and a while after the thief met me in the street and saluted
me with the salam, saying, "O my lord, fright for fright! Hadst
thou taken aught from me, thou hadst a part in the
calamity."[FN#114] I replied to him, "Allah be the judge between
thee and me!"[FN#115] And this is what I have to recount. Then
came forward the thirteenth constable and said, "'I will tell you
a tale which a man of my friends told me."