Giafer found the walk rather dull. And the more dull he found it the more surprised he was at the unusual patience exhibited by the Commander of the Faithful, who uttered no impatient exclamations, but whose countenance bore an expression of satisfaction and interest far enough removed from any kind of irritability or ill-humour. They had wandered in this way for a long time through many of the least-frequented and least-interesting thoroughfares of the city, the Grand Vizier scarcely knowing whether he were more bored by the walk or astonished at the evident satisfaction of his master, when suddenly the Caliph stood still, leaning against the wall of a house and staring intently at the blank wall of the house immediately opposite. After they had stood thus for some minutes, the Caliph looking fixedly and with evidently increasing interest and excitement at the dead wall opposite, Giafer became seriously alarmed, fearing that his master had either lost his wits or was going to have a fit. He was, in fact, so much frightened by the extraordinary behaviour of the Caliph, which had continued all the evening, that he continued to stand beside him and watch him, himself motionless and speechless. All at once the Caliph, still gazing intently before him, grasped Giafer by the arm and whispered to him as though others were present-- "Go, take Mesrur with you; go round that house, down the turning yonder, and arrest them as they come out of the gate." For a moment Giafer, who seriously believed that the Caliph had become demented, hesitated. But the habit of obedience prevailed, and putting his hand to his head, the usual sign of implicit devotion to the royal will, he beckoned Mesrur, whose figure at a little distance from them was the only living object visible in the street, and they disappeared together down the narrow turning which the Caliph had indicated. We must now explain what it was that caused the Caliph to remain so long gazing at the house before the outer wall of which he was standing. As he came along the street he saw in the garden of the house, which lay immediately behind the high wall in front of him, a sight very different from any of those which had hitherto been disclosed to him.