That night the new Caliph spent in feasting and revelry, but Giafer, and Zobeideh and her son, Prince Emin, likewise spent the hours in depression and grief, looking forward to death in the morning. When the day dawned, and the new Caliph, after morning prayers, had assumed his seat on the Imperial divan, he commanded Giafer to be brought before him. Then, with a sinister smile, he demanded of the prisoner, "Where is the most illustrious Caliph Haroun Alraschid? Say, Giafer, what hast thou done with him?" To this Giafer replied, "Haroun Alraschid, my master, is in the hand of God. But where he may be at this moment, I have told you that I do not know." "No one can know so well as thou where he is," said Ibrahim, "for did he not go to Bussora with thee and has never returned? Doubtless thou hast killed him, and hast hidden his body, otherwise he would be here, therefore thy life is forfeited," and with that he made a sign to the mutes, who immediately took Giafer and passed the fatal cord about his neck. As they waited with trained docility for the usual sign from the Caliph to draw tight the silken cord and despatch their victim, a great shout was heard, and outside the palace acclamations filled the air, and cries of--"Haroun Alraschid returns! Welcome, Prince of the Faithful!" Ibrahim hearing these words, after a few moments' hesitation, made the sign to the mutes, and Giafer's life would have ended, but on the instant an officer standing by, who owed his position to the Grand Vizier, cut through the cord with his sword. As he did so, Haroun, pale with anger and his eyes flashing, entered the door of the audience-chamber. Ibrahim, pale as ashes, sat on the throne petrified with terror. As Haroun's eyes fell upon the shrinking prince sitting on his throne, and on the form of Giafer kneeling with part of the severed cord still about his neck, the veins stood out upon his forehead, and rage rendered him speechless. He beckoned to Mesrur, the ever faithful, who instantly pulled Ibrahim from his seat, and, taking him aside into an antechamber, forthwith struck off his head. That Haroun reinstated Giafer as Grand Vizier, and took Zobeideh and Prince Emin out of prison, needs hardly be said. That he received Abdallah and Ahmed very graciously, and that he bought the fair captive of them at a truly royal price, is not surprising. But it is perhaps somewhat surprising that all the dangers and hardships he underwent, in consequence of his capture by the pirates, did not suffice to wean him altogether from such perilous adventures in the future. He was of so daring and fearless a temper, however, that it made no further difference than this, that ever afterwards when he wandered about in disguise Mesrur accompanied him as well as the Grand Vizier. The Caliph and the Blind Fisherman.