the King’s Son ww 197

At this discourse I changed colour, and began to tremble. While
the tailor was asking me the reason, my chamber door opened,
and the old man appeared to us with my hatchet and cords. This
was the genie, the ravisher of the fair princess of the Isle of Ebony,
who had thus disguised himself, after he had treated her with the
utmost barbarity. ‘I am a genie,’ said he,‘son of the daughter of
Eblis, prince of genies. ‘Is not this your hatchet, and are not these

your cords?’

‘After the genie had put the ‘question to me, he gave me no
time to answer, nor was it in my power, so much had his terrible
aspect disordered me. He grasped me by the middle, dragged me
out of the chamber, and ‘mounting into the air, carried me up to
the skies with such swiftness that I was unable to take notice
of the way he carried me. He descended again in like manner
to the earth, which on a sudden he caused to open with a stroke of
his foot, and‘ so sank down at once, where I found myself in the
enchanted palace, before the fair princess of the Isle of Ebony.
But alas, what a spectacle was there! I saw what pierced me to
the heart; this poor princess was weltering in her blood upon the
ground, ‘more dead than alive, with her cheeks bathed in tears.

‘ Perfidious wretch,’ said the genie to her, pointing at me, ‘who
is this?” :

“She cast. her languishing ‘eyes upon me, and answered mourn-
fully, ‘I-do not know-him; I never saw him till this moment,’

‘What!’ said the genie, ‘he is the cause of thy being in the
condition thou art justly in, and yet darest thou a thou dost
not know him?’ Ee

‘Tf Ido not know him, ead the princess, ‘would you have me
teli a lie on purpose to ruin him?’ ca

‘Oh then,’ continued the genie, pulling out a scimitar, and pre-_
senting it to the princess, ‘if you never saw him before, take the
scimitar and cut off his head.