Page:Fairy tales from the Arabian nights.djvu/277

 prince does but find out the other peg which I mention, the horse will carry him where he pleases to go. It is not to be supposed that he will go anywhere but where he can find assistance, and make himself known.

'Be it as it will,' replied the King of Persia, 'as I cannot depend upon the assurance you give me, your head shall answer for my son's life, if he does not return safe and sound in three days' time, or I hear certainly that he is alive.' Then he ordered his officers to secure the Indian, and keep him a close prisoner; after which he retired to his palace, extremely grieved that the feast of Nevrouz should afford him and his court so much sorrow.'

In the meantime Prince Firouz Schah was carried through the air with prodigious swiftness, and in less than an hour's time he had got so high that he could not distinguish any thing on the earth; mountains and plains seemed confused together. It was then he began to think of returning from whence he came, and thought to do it by turning the same peg the contrary way, and pulling the bridle at the same time. But when he found that the horse still rose with the same swiftness, his astonishment was extreme. He turned the peg several times, one way and the other but all in vain. It was then that he grew aware of his fault, in not taking the necessary precautions to guide the horse before he mounted him. He immediately apprehended the great danger he was in, but it did not deprive him of his reason. He examined the horse's head and neck with great attention, and perceived behind the horse's right ear another peg, smaller and less discernible than the other. He turned that peg, and immediately perceived that he descended in the same oblique manner as he mounted, but not so swiftly.

Night had overshadowed that part of the earth over which the prince then was for almost half an hour, when he found out and turned the small peg; and, as the horse descended, he lost sight of the sun by degrees, till it grew quite dark, insomuch that, instead of choosing what place he would go to, he was forced to let the bridle lie upon the horse's neck and wait patiently till he alighted, though not without dread lest it should be in the desert, a river, or the sea.