THE ENCHANTED HORSE. 451

hitherto pursued, as the most likely to preserve her affections
unmolested for a prince to whom she had pledged her heart and
her faith.

The princess had nothing more to add, and Firouz Schah in-
quired if she knew what became of the enchanted horse after the
death of the Indian. “I am ignorant,” replied she, “of what
orders the sultan may have given concerning it; but after the
wonders I related of it, it is nut probable that he neglected to
appropriate it to himself.”

As Prince Firouz Schah did not doubt that the sultan of
Cashmire had carefully preserved the horse, he communicated
to the princess his design of using it to convey her back again
to Persia; and they agreed that on the following day the prin-
cess should dress herself in more elegant attire than she was
then in, to receive the sultan with greater marks of distinction,
when Firouz Schah should conduct him to her apartment, never-
theless still preserving her usual silence before him.

The sultan expressed great pleasure when the prince of Persia
related to him how far his first visit to the princess had operated
towards her recovery ; and when, on the succeeding day, the
princess received him in a manner which convinced him that
the cure was rapidly advancing, he considered him as the first
physician in the universe.

As the prince of Persia had accompanied the sultan to the
princess’s apartment, he left it also when he did ; and as he went
along with him, he asked him if he might, without being defi-
cient in the respect due to him, inquire by what adventure a
princess of Bengal happened to be in the kingdom of Cashmire,
so far distant from her own dominions, without any of her family
attendants, He asked this question, as if he had been totally
ignorant of the whole, that he might lead the conversation to the
subject of the enchanted horse, and learn from the sultan’s lips
what was become of it.

The sultan did not make any mystery of the affair; he re-
peated to him nearly the same thing with which the princess of
Bengal had previously made him acquainted, adding, that he
had ordered the enchanted horse to be conveyed into his trea-
sury as a rare Curiosity, although he was ignorant of the secret
by which it could be used.

“Sire,” replied the pretended physician, “the information