1-l- Al-Malik Al-Zahir Rukn Al-Din Bibars Al-Bundukdari and the Sixteen Captains of Police - The Twelfth Constable's History

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."