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 tomb, where it seems they have buried you alive, for reasons unknown to me. But what makes me wonder is that you have suffered yourself to be buried in this place without any resistance.'

The young man recovered himself at these words, and begged me, with a smiling countenance, to sit down by him. 'Prince,' he said, 'I will tell you something so extraordinary that it cannot but surprise you.

'My father is a merchant jeweller, who, through skill in his calling, has acquired great wealth. He has many slaves, and also deputies, whom he employs to go as supercargoes to sea with his own ships, to maintain the connection he has at several courts, which he furnishes with such precious stones as they want.

'He had been married a long while, without children, when he understood by a dream that he would have a son, though his life would be but short, at which he was very much concerned when he awoke. But when I was born there was great joy in the family.

'My father, who had observed the very moment of my birth, consulted astrologers about my nativity. They told him: "Your son shall live very happily till the age of fifteen, when he will be in danger of losing his life, and hardly be able to escape, but if his good destiny should preserve him beyond that time, he will live to grow very old. It will be," said they, "when the statue of brass, that stands upon the top of the mountain of adamant, is thrown down into the sea by Prince Agib, son of King Cassib, and, as the stars prognosticate, your son will be killed fifty days afterwards by that prince."

'As this part of the prediction about the statue agrees exactly with my father's dream, it distressed him so much, and he was struck to the very heart. In the meantime, he took all imaginable care of my education until this present year, which is the fifteenth of my age, and he had notice given him yesterday that the statue of brass had been thrown into the sea about ten days ago, by that same prince I told you of. This news has cost him so many tears and has alarmed him so much, that he does not look like himself.

'Since these predictions of the astrologers he has sought by