Page:Aladdin, or, The wonderful lamp.pdf/9

 the earth, and said, What wouldst thou have with me? I am ready to obey thee as thy slave, and the slave of all who have the ring, on thy finger; I, and the other slaves of that ring.

Aladdin, who had not been used to such visions, would have been so frightened, that he would not have been able to speak at the sight of so extraordinary a figure; but the danger he was in made him answer without hesitation, Whoever thou art, deliver me from this place, if thou art able. He had no sooner made an end of these words, but the earth opened, and he found himself on the very spot where the magician first brought him.

It was sometime before Aladdin’s eyes could bear the light, after having been so long in total darkness; and he could not comprehend how he had got so soon out of its bowels. He remembered the way he had come, and hastened back to the city, where he found his mother in the greatest grief. The joy to see her, and his faintness for want of sustenance for three days, made him faint, and he remained for a long time as dead. As soon as he recovered, the first words he spake were, Pray, mother, give me something to eat, for I have not put a morsel of any thing into my mouth these three days. His mother brought what she had, and set it before him. My son, said she, be not too eager, for it is dangerous; eat but a little at a time, and take care of yourself.

Aladdin took his mother’s advice, and ate and drank moderately. When he had done, Mother, said he to her, I cannot help complaining of you, for abandoning me so easily to the discretion of a man who had a design to kill me, and who at this very moment thinks my death certain.

Then Aladdin began to tell his mother all that happened to him from Friday, when the magician took him to see the palaces and gardens about that town, and what fell out in the way, till they came to the place between the two mountains, and his taking the wonderful lamp, which he pulled out of his bosom and showed to his mother, as well as the transparent fruit of different colours, which he had gathered in the garden as he returned, two purses full of which he gave to his mother. But, though these fruits were precious stones, brilliant as the sun, and the reflection of a lamp, which then lighted the room might have led them to think they were of great value, she was as ignorant of their worth as her son. She had been bred in a middling rank of life, so that we must not wonder that she looked on them as things of no value, and only pleasing to the eye by the variety of their colours.

Aladdin put them behind one of the cushions of the sofa he sat upon, and continued his story, telling his mother, that upon his refusal to give the magician the lamp till he had got out, the stone, by his throwing some incense into the fire, and using two or three magical words, stopped it up, and the earth closed again. When he found himself buried alive in a dismal cave, by the touching of his ring, he, properly speaking, came to life again. When he had made an end of his story, he said to his mother, I need say no more; you know the rest.

Aladdin’s mother heard with so much patience as not to interrupt him, his surprising and wonderful relation; and when Aladdin had finished