Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/142

 doors, the Wind-Demon came in and vanished with the wife of the King's son.

Not very long afterwards the King's son came back, and could find his wife nowhere. He went to the Padishah to seek her, and came back again, for it was certain that the Demon must have taken her, no other living soul could have got near her. Bitterly did he weep, fiercely did he dash himself against the floor, but then he quickly rose up again, took horse, and galloped away into the wide world, determined to find either death or his consort.

He went on for days, he went on for weeks, in his trouble and anguish he gave himself no rest. All at once a palace sprang up before him, but it seemed to him like a mirage, which baffles the eye that looks upon it. It was the palace of his eldest sister. The damsel was just then looking out of the window, and lo! she caught sight of a man wandering there where never a bird had flown and never a caravan had travelled. Then she recognized him as her brother, and so great was their mutual joy that they could not come to words for hugging and kissing.

Towards evening the damsel said to the King's son: "The lion will be here shortly, and although he is very good to me, he is only a brute beast for all that, and may do thee a mischief." And she took her brother and hid him.