Page:The jade story book; stories from the Orient (IA jadestorybooksto00cous).pdf/199

Rh over her. However, I will not fail, though it be with great reluctance, to ask my wife the favor you desire. If I should not come again to pay you my respects, it will be the sign that I have not been able to succeed in my petition; but beforehand, I desire you to forgive me, and consider that you yourself have reduced me to this extremity."

"Son," replied the Sultan of the Indies, "your wife would show that her love to you was very slight if, with the power she possesses as a fairy, she should refuse so trifling a request as that I have begged you to make. Go; only ask her. If she loves you, she will not deny you."

All these reasons of the Sultan of the Indies could not satisfy Prince Ahmed; and so great was his vexation, that he left the court two days sooner than usual.

When he returned, the fairy, to whom he always before had appeared with a gay countenance, at once observed his melancholy, and asked the cause of the change she perceived in him. After much pressing, Ahmed confessed that the sultan had discovered his abode and his marriage with the fairy,