the King’s Son BE 195

redoubtable soever he be, I will make him feel the weight of my
arm: I swear, solemnly that I will extirpate all the genies in the
world, and him first’ The princess, who knew the consequences,
conjured me not to touch the talisman; ‘for that would be a
means,’ said she, ‘to ruin both you and me: J know what belongs
to genies better than you. The fumes of the wine. did not suffer
me to hearken to her reasons; but I gave the talisman a kick with
my foot, and broke it in vera pieces.

The talisman was no sooner broken, than the palace began
to shake, and was ready to fall with a hideous noise like thunder,
accompanied with flashes of lightning and a great darkness. This
terrible noise in a moment dispelled the fumes of my wine, and
made me sensible, but too late, of the folly I had committed,
‘Princess, cried I, ‘what means all this?’

She answered ina fright, and without any concern for her owt
misfortune, ‘Alas! you are undone, if you do not escape immediately,’

I followed her ‘advice, and my fears were so great that I forgot
my hatchet and cords. I had scarcely got to the stairs by which I
came down, when the enchanted palace opened, and made a passage
for the genie: he asked the princess, in great anger, ‘ What has hap-
pened to you, and why did you call me?’

‘A qualm,’ said the princess, ‘made me fetch this bottle which
you see here, out of which I drank twice or thrice, and by. mis-
chance made a false step, and fell upon the oe which is
broken, and that is all’

At this answer the furious genie told her, ‘You are a false
woman, and a liar: how came that axe and those cords there?”

‘I never saw them till this moment,’ said the princess. ‘Your
coming in such an impetuous manner has, it may be, forced them
up in some place as you came along, and so brought them hither
without your knowing it.’

The genie made no other answer but reproaches nace blows

: os