Page:Fairy tales from the Arabian nights.djvu/203

 time to answer, nor was it in my power, so much had his terrible aspect disordered me. He grasped me by the middle, dragged me out of the chamber, and mounting into the air, carried me up to the skies with such swiftness that I was unable to take notice of the way he carried me. He descended again in like manner to the earth, which on a sudden he caused to open with a stroke of his foot, and so sank down at once, where I found myself in the enchanted palace, before the fair princess of the Isle of Ebony. But alas, what a spectacle was there! I saw what pierced me to the heart; this poor princess was weltering in her blood upon the ground, more dead than alive, with her cheeks bathed in tears.

'Perfidious wretch,' said the genie to her, pointing at me, 'who is this?'

She cast her languishing eyes upon me, and answered mournfully, 'I do not know him; I never saw him till this moment.'

'What!' said the genie, 'he is the cause of thy being in the condition thou art justly in, and yet darest thou say thou dost not know him?'

'If I do not know him,' said the princess, 'would you have me tell a lie on purpose to ruin him?'

'Oh then,' continued the genie, pulling out a scimitar, and presenting it to the princess, 'if you never saw him before, take the scimitar and cut off his head.'

'Alas!' replied the princess, 'my strength is so far spent that I cannot lift up my arm, and if I could, how should I have the heart to take away the life of an innocent man?'

'This refusal,' said the genie to the princess, 'sufficiently informs me of your crime.' Upon which, turning to me, 'And thou,' said he, 'dost thou not know her?'

I should have been the most ungrateful wretch, and the most perfidious of all mankind, if I had not shown myself as faithful to the princess as she was to me who had been the cause of her misfortunes; therefore I answered the genie, 'How should I know her?'

'If it be so,' said he, 'take the scimitar and cut off her head: on this condition I will set thee at liberty, for then I shall be