198 % = | The Story of —

‘Alas!’ replied the princess, ‘my strength is so far spent that I
cannot lift up my arm, and if I could, how should I have the heart
to take away the life of an innocent man ?’

‘This refusal, said the genie to the princess, ‘sufficiently informs
me of your crime.” Upon which, turning to me, ‘And thou,’ said
he, ‘dost thou not know her?’

I should have been the most ungrateful wetehe and the most per-
fidious of all mankind, if I had not shown myself as faithful to the
princess as she was to me who had been the cause of her mis-
fortunes ; therefore I answered the genie, ‘ How should I know her?’

‘If it be so,’ said he, ‘take the scimitar and cut off her head:
on this condition I will set thee at liberty, for then. I shall be.
convinced that thou didst_ never see her till this very moment, as
thou sayest.’ ;

‘With all my heart, replied I, and took the scimitar in my hand.

But I did it only to demonstrate by my behaviour, as much as
possible, that as she had shown her resolution to sacrifice her life
for my sake, I would not refuse to sacrifice mine for hers, The
princess, notwithstanding her pain and sufferifig, understood my | ~
meaning, which she signified by an obliging look. Upon this I
stepped back, and threw the scimitar on the ground. ‘I should for
ever, said I to the genie, ‘be hateful to all mankind were I to be so
base as to murder a lady like this, who is ready to give up the ghost :
do with me what you please, since I am in your se I cannot
obey your barbarous commands.’

‘I see, said the genie, ‘that you both outbrave me, but both of
you shall know, by the treatment I give you, what I am capable of
doing.’. At these words the monster: took up the scimitar and cut
off one of her hands, which left her only so much life as to give:
“me atoken with the other that she bid me adieu for ever, the sight
of which threw me into a fit. When I was come to myself again,
I expostulated with the genie as to why he made me languish in,