108 Bex Prince Ahmed
throne, laid the bottle at the sultan’s feet, kissed the rich carpet
which covered the footstool, and rising, said, ‘I have brought you,

sit, the health-giving water which. your majesty so much desired to’
keep in your treasury; but at the same time wish you such health
. that you may never have occasion to. make use of it.’ oc

After the prince had finished speaking, the sultan placed iin
on his right hand, and then said, ‘Son, I am very much obliged to:
you for this valuable present; also for the great danger you have
exposed yourself to upon my account, which I have been informed

of by the magician who knows the fountain of lions; but do me the
_ pleasure,’ continued he, ‘to tell me by what incredible power you
have been preserved.’

‘ Sir,’ replied Pence Ahmed, ‘I foe no chine in the compliment
your majesty is pleased to make me; all the honour is due to the:
fairy my wife; I merely followed her good advice.’ The sultan »
showed cunverdly all the demonstrations of joy, but secretly became '
more and more jealous, retired into an inner eC: and sent for”
the magician. :

After conferring with fe the sultan next day said to the prince, :
in the midst of all his courtiers, ‘Son, I have one thing more to i
_ ask of you; after which, I shall expect. nothing more from your”
obedience, nor your influence with your wife. This request is, to i
bring me a_man not above a foot and a half high, whose beard ~is :
thirty feet long, who carries upon his shoulders a bar of iron of five.
hundredweight which he uses as a quarterstaff, and who can speak." ”

‘Prince Ahmed, who did not bélieve 'that there was such a man in’
the world as his father described, would gladly have excused himself }
but the sultan persisted in his demand, and told him that the faity.
could do more incredible things. ae ;

’ Next day the prince returned to. the. subterranean iinedom of
Pari Banou, to whom he told his father’s new demand, which, - he.
said, he looked upon as more ‘impossible than the first two 3 ‘for?