Page:Aladdin, or, The wonderful lamp.pdf/24

24ALADDIN &c. The next morning he got up, and walked some time under her window. The princess Badroulboudour, by chance, rose early that morning, and began to dress, when one of the women looking through the window, perceived Aladdin, and presently run and told her mistress. The princess went that moment herself to the window, and seeing Aladdin, immediately opened it. The noise made Aladdin turn his head that way, who, knowing the princess, saluted her with an air that expressed his joy. To lose no time, said she to him, I have sent to have the private door opened; enter, and come, up; she then shut the window.

The private door was soon opened, and Aladdin was conducted up into the princess’s chamber. After their embracings, Aladdin said, I beg of you, princess, to tell me, what is become of an old lamp which I left upon the cornice in the hall of the four-and twenty windows, before I went to hunting. Then the princess gave Aladdin an account how she changed the old lamp for a new one; and how she had been transported thither by the African magician. Princess, said Aladdin, I desire you to tell me what he has done with the lamp. He carries it carefully wrapt up in his bosom, said the princess. After some consideration, Aladdin concerted a plan in order to get possession of the lamp; he went into the city in the disguise of a slave, where he procured a powder, that, on being swallowed, would instantly cause a deathlike sleep, and the princess invited the magician to sup with her. As she had never been so polite to him before, he was quite delighted with her kindness; and while they were at table, she ordered a slave to bring two cups of wine which she had herself prepared, and after pretending to taste the one she held in her hand, she asked the magician to change cups, as was the custom between lovers in China. He joyfully seized the goblet, and drinking it all at a draught, fell lifeless on the floor.

Aladdin was at hand to snatch the lamp from his bosom, and throwing the traitor out upon the grass of the meadow, the genius was summoned, and instantly the princess, the palace, and all that it contained, were transported to their original station in China.

The very morning of the return of Aladdin’s palace, the sultan went into his closet to indulge his sorrows. He cast his eyes in a melancholy manner towards the place where he remembered the palace once stood, expecting only to see an open space; but perceiving that vacancy filled up, he at first imagined it to be the effect of a fog: but looking more attentively, he was convinced that it was his son-in-law’s palace. He returned immediately into his apartment, and ordered a horse to be saddled and brought to him in all haste, which he mounted that instant, and rode to Aladdin’s palace. Aladdin perceiving the sultan coming, hastened to receive him at the foot of the great staircase, and to help him to dismount. After dismounting, Aladdin led the sultan into the princess’s apartment. The sultan embraced her with his face bathed in tears of joy; and alter that commanded a feast of ten days to he proclaimed for joy of their return.

Within a few years afterwards the sultan died, and the princess succeeded him, and they both reigned together many years,and left a numinous and illustrious posterity behind them.

FINIS