Page:Fairy tales from the Arabian nights.djvu/278

 At last, after midnight, the horse alighted and stopped, and Prince Firouz Schah dismounted very faint and hungry, having eaten nothing since the morning, when he came out of the palace with his father to assist at the festival. The first thing he had to do in this darkness of the night was to endeavour to find out where he was. He found himself to be on the terrace of a magnificent palace, surrounded with a balustrade of white marble breast high, and groping about, found a flight of stairs, which led down into the palace, the door of which was half open.

None but Prince Firouz Schah would have ventured to go down those stairs, dark as it was, and exposed to danger from friends or foes. But no consideration could stop him. 'I do not come,' said he to himself, 'to do anybody any harm, and certainly, whoever meets or sees me first, and finds that I have no arms in my hands, will not attempt anything against my life, before they hear what I have to say for myself.' After this reflection, he opened the door wider, without making any noise, and went softly down the stairs, that he might not wake anybody, and, when he came to a landing place on the staircase, he found the door open of a great hall, that had a light in it.

The prince stopped at the door, and listening, heard no other noise than the snoring of some people who were fast asleep. He advanced a little into the room, and, by the light of a lantern, saw that the persons whom he heard snore were black chamberlains, with naked sabres laid by them, which was enough to inform him that this was the guardchamber of some queen or princess; which latter it proved to be.

In the next room to this was the princess, as appeared by the hght he saw, the door being open, and a thin silken curtain hanging before the doorway. Prince Firouz Schah advanced on tip-toe, without waking the chamberlains. He put by the curtain and looked in. The princess lay asleep on a sofa, and her women on the floor.

The prince immediately fell in love with her. He gently woke her, and the princess at once opened her eyes without fear. Seeing the prince on his knees as a suppliant, she asked him what was the matter.