Page:Edmund Dulac's picture-book for the French Red cross.djvu/156

THE LADY BADOURA Meymooneh at length, 'for where both are perfect the decision is beyond our power.'

Then, transforming herself into a flea, she sprang forthwith upon the neck of the prince and bit him. Camaralzaman awoke, and, raising himself on one elbow, beheld the face and form of Badoura by his side. Giving himself up to a sudden ecstasy of love, and crying that all his life had been a dream of which this was the waking fulfilment, he strove to arouse her; but in vain: she was bound by the spell of the Efreets, who, having rendered themselves invisible, were watching intently. At last, his words of love falling exhausted on her unconscious spirit, he placed his arm beneath her raven tresses, and, raising her head, kissed her on the brow with the purest love of youth. Then, by a sudden inspiration, on seeing a ring upon her finger, he exchanged it for his own; and, having done this, sank to sleep in obedience to the Efreets' spell.

Meymooneh, now anxious to show the other aspect of the case, again assumed the form of a flea, and, springing upon Badoura, soon found a way to bite her hard in a soft place. Badoura sprang up wide awake and immediately beheld Camaralzaman sleeping by her side.

'Oh me!' she cried, 'what shame has come upon me? Yet, by Allah! he is so beautiful that I love him to distraction.' Then, after crying out the utmost words of love to his unheeding spirit, she fell to kissing his hands, whereupon she found to her amazement that her ring was upon his finger and a strange one upon her own. 'I know not,' cried she at last, 'but it seemeth we are married.' And with that she sighed with content, and, nestling to his side, fell under the Efreets' spell of sleep.

At a loss, even now, to decide which was the more beautiful, the Efreets agreed to waive their difference, and Dahnash, at the bidding of Meymooneh, raised Badoura in his arms and sped through space to China.

When waking came with morning light the case with Badoura was like that with Camaralzaman, save that the former, having 106