Page:Fairy tales from the Arabian nights.djvu/490

 had known that both he and his palace were in Africa, the very name of which would soon have made him remember the magician, his declared enemy; but the genie, the slave of the ring, had not made the least mention of the name of the place, nor had Aladdin asked him.

The Princess Badroulboudour rose earlier that morning than she had done since her transportation into Africa by the magician, whose presence she was forced to endure once a day, because he was master of the palace; but she had always treated him so harshly that he dared not reside in it. As she was dressing, one of the women looking through the window perceived Aladdin, and ran and told her mistress. The princess, who could not believe the news, went herself to the window, and seeing Aladdin, immediately opened it. The noise the princess made in opening the window made Aladdin turn his head that way, and, knowing the princess, he saluted her with an air that expressed his joy. 'To lose no time,' said she to him, 'I have sent to have the private door opened for you; enter, and come up.' She then shut the window.

The private door, which was just under the princess's apartment, was soon opened, and Aladdin was conducted up into the princess's room. It is impossible to express their joy at seeing each other after a separation which they both thought was for ever. They embraced several times, and these embracings over, they sat down, shedding tears of joy, and Aladdin said, 'I beg you, Princess, before we talk of anything else, to tell me, both for your own sake, the sultan your father's, and mine, what is become of an old lamp which I left upon the shelf in the hall of the four-and-twenty windows, before I went hunting?'

'Alas! dear husband,' answered the princess, 'I am afraid our misfortune is owing to that lamp: and what grieves me most is that I have been the cause of it.'

'Princess,' replied Aladdin, 'do not blame yourself, since it was entirely my fault, and I ought to have taken more care of it. But let us now think only of repairing the loss; tell me what has happened, and into whose hands it has fallen.'

Then the Princess Badroulboudour gave Aladdin an account of how she changed the old lamp for a new one, which she ordered