Now it turned out the king himself was upon the ship toward which my ancestor was sailing, and he made ready for battle; for that was part of the plan he had in mind when he made the wager, knowing my forefather to be a very determined and wise man. My forebear, however, did not know the king was on board, and grieved ever after that such should have been the case.
When he was about a league off he caused to be brought up from the hold some planks which were then formed into a large rudder, which he put behind the ship, but not held as a rudder ordinarily is, it being laid flat on the water. It was now observed the masts were hinged where they entered the ship.
When he had come within about three ship lengths he put a great force on the rudder and bent the masts backward against powerful springs. The pushing down upon the rudder caused the ship’s nose to dip down and to enter the water, which it did with such rapidity it shot clear below the other ship and would have passed without accident had not one of the sailors lost his presence of mind and released the masts just as the boat was coming up on the other side. The masts sprung upright with such speed and force they caught the ship the king was on, threw it high in the air, turning it upside down and throwing all upon it into the sea and they were drowned.
When my forefather landed he went to the palace of the king to demand his talents of gold. He then learned the king had been on that particular ship, and knew he must have perished.
The renown of the voyage spread like wildfire and created such a sentiment nothing would do but my forefather must be made king, and he was crowned at once, and having so much gold his kingdom became the richest in the world.
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_Being another item in the same document, and a most interesting one, as it gives some incidents in the life of one of my ancestors who was at some time a Caliph of Bagdad._
MY grandfather, who was a Caliph of Bagdad, was an illustrious story-teller, and I should be doing him an injustice to omit from this narrative one or two of the most wonderful of the tales he told.
He was in the habit of indulging in practical jokes and whenever a new idea he could use for that purpose came to him he was prone to put it into operation without delay.