"I think," said the first speaker, "that the best plan would be to throw a noose over his head; we may not kill him, for it would be but a small ransom that they would pay for his body, and, more than that, we shouldn't be sure of receiving it." "An hour before midnight, then!" exclaimed they, and separated, one going this way, another that. Said was not a little horrified at this scheme. He resolved to hasten at once to the caliph's palace and warn him of the threatened danger. But after running through several streets, he remembered the caution that the fairy had given him--that the caliph had received a bad report about him. He reflected that his warning might be laughed at, or regarded as an attempt on his part to ingratiate himself with the Caliph of Bagdad; and so he concluded that it would be best to depend on his good sword, and rescue the caliph from the hands of the robbers himself. So he did not return to Kalum-Bek's house, but sat down on the steps of a mosque and waited there until night had set in. Then he went through the bazar and into the street mentioned by the robbers, and hid himself behind a projection of one of the houses. He might have stood there an hour, when he heard two men coming slowly down the street. At first he thought it must be the caliph and his grand vizier; but one of the men clapped his hands, and immediately two other men hurried very noiselessly up the street from the bazar. They whispered together for a while, and then separated; three hiding not far from Said, while the fourth paced up and down the street. The night was very dark, but still, so that Said had to depend almost entirely upon his acute sense of hearing. Another half-hour had passed, when footsteps were heard coming from the bazar. The robber must have heard them too, for he stole by Said towards the bazar. The steps came nearer, and Said was just able to make out some dark figures, when the robber clapped his hands, and, in the same moment, the three men waiting in ambush rushed out. The persons attacked must have been armed, for Said heard the ring of clashing swords. At once he drew his own Damascus blade, and sprang upon the robber's with the cry: "Down with the enemies of the great Haroun!" He struck one of them to the ground with the first blow, and turned upon two others, who were just in the act of disarming a man over whom they had thrown a rope. Said lifted the rope blindly in order to cut it, but in the effort to use his sword he struck one of the robber's arms such a blow, as to cut off his hand, and the robber fell to his knees with cries of pain. The fourth robber, who had been fighting with another man, now came towards Said, who was still engaged with the third, but the man who had been lassoed no sooner found himself free than he drew his dagger, and, from one side, plunged it into the breast of the advancing robber. When the remaining robber saw this, he threw away his sword and fled.