When Hasan heard this, he said to himself: ‘If God Almighty wills it, this rod and this cap will give me the upper hand, and I have a better right to them than these two boys.I shall now try to get them by a trick, so that I can use them to save myself together with my wife and children from this tyrannical queen, and so that we may then quit this gloomy place from which no man can escape in any other way. It may be that this was the reason that God brought me to these boys.’ He then raised his head, looked at them and said: ‘If you want me to settle the matter, I shall put you to a test, with the winner taking the rod and the loser the cap, for if I distinguish between you in this way I shall know which of you deserves what.’ ‘Uncle,’ they told him, ‘we are both ready for your test, so do what you want in order to judge between us.’ Will you listen to me and obey me?’ he asked them, and when they said yes, he explained: ‘I shall throw a stone and whoever gets to it first and takes it before the other can have the rod, and the one who comes in second, and fails to take it, will get the cap.’ The boys agreed to accept this, and Hasan picked up a stone and threw it as hard as he could so that it went out of sight, with the boys racing each other to get to it as it fell