Page:Fairy tales from the Arabian nights.djvu/365

 a fret, and washing his nets from the slime, cast them the third time; but brought up nothing except stones, shells, and mud. Nobody can express his dismay; he was almost beside himself. However, when the dawn began to appear, he did not forget to say his prayers, like a good Mussulman, and afterwards added this petition: 'Lord, thou knowest that I cast my nets only four times a day; I have already drawn them three times, without the least reward for my labour: I am only to cast them once more; I pray thee to render the sea favourable to me, as thou didst to Moses.'

The fisherman, having finished his prayer, cast his nets the fourth time; and when he thought it was time, he drew them as before with great difficulty; but, instead of fish, found nothing in them but a vessel of yellow copper, which by its weight seemed to be full of something; and he observed that it was shut up and sealed, with a leaden seal upon it. This rejoiced him: 'I will sell it.' said he, 'at the foundry, and with the money arising from the produce buy a measure of corn.' He examined the vessel on all sides, and shook it, to see if what was within made any noise, but heard nothing. This, with the impression of the seal upon the leaden cover, made him think there was something precious in it. To try this, he took a knife, and opened it with very little trouble. He presently turned the mouth downward, but nothing came out, which surprised him extremely. He set it before him, and while he looked upon it attentively, there came out a very thick smoke which obliged him to retire two or three paces away.

The smoke ascended to the clouds, and extending itself along the sea and upon the shore, formed a great mist, which, we may well imagine, did mightily astonish the fisherman. When the smoke was all out of the vessel, it reunited itself, and became a solid body, of which there was formed a genie twice as high as the greatest of giants. At the sight of a monster of such unwieldy bulk, the fisherman would fain have fled, but he was so frightened that he could not go one step.

'Solomon,' cried the genie immediately, 'Solomon, great prophet, pardon, pardon; I will never more oppose thy will, I will obey all thy commands.'

When the fisherman heard these words of the genie, he recovered