Page:Fairy tales from the Arabian nights.djvu/199

 or redoubtable soever he be, I will make him feel the weight of my arm: I swear solemnly that I will extirpate all the genies in the world, and him first.' The princess, who knew the consequences, conjured me not to touch the talisman; 'for that would be a means,' said she, 'to ruin both you and me: I know what belongs to genies better than you.' The fumes of the wine did not suffer me to hearken to her reasons; but I gave the talisman a kick with my foot, and broke it in several pieces.

The talisman was no sooner broken, than the palace began to shake, and was ready to fall with a hideous noise like thunder, accompanied with flashes of lightning and a great darkness. This terrible noise in a moment dispelled the fumes of my wine, and made me sensible, but too late, of the folly I had committed. 'Princess,' cried I, 'what means all this?'

She answered in a fright, and without any concern for her own misfortune, 'Alas! you are undone, if you do not escape immediately.'

I followed her advice, and my fears were so great that I forgot my hatchet and cords. I had scarcely got to the stairs by which I came down, when the enchanted palace opened, and made a passage for the genie: he asked the princess, in great anger, 'What has happened to you, and why did you call me?'

'A qualm,' said the princess, 'made me fetch this bottle which you see here, out of which I drank twice or thrice, and by mischance made a false step, and fell upon the talisman, which is broken, and that is all.'

At this answer the furious genie told her, 'You are a false woman, and a liar: how came that axe and those cords there?'

'I never saw them till this moment,' said the princess. 'Your coming in such an impetuous manner has, it may be, forced them up in some place as you came along, and so brought them hither without your knowing it.'

The genie made no other answer but reproaches and blows of which I heard 'the noise. I could not endure to hear the pitiful cries and shouts of the princess, so cruelly abused; I had already laid off the suit she made me put on, and taken my own, which I had laid on the stairs the day before, when I came out of the